UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 


BOOKS    BY    HENRY    JAMES 
PUBLISHED  BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE  SACRED  FOUNT $1.50 

THE  WINGS  OF  THE  DOVE.    2  vols.    2.50 

THE  BETTER  SORT 1.50 

THE  GOLDEN  BOWL.    2  vols. .    .    .    2.50 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 


BY 

HENRY     JAMES 


VOLUME   II 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1904 


COPYRIGHT,  1904,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published,  November,  1904 


TROW   DIRECTORY 

PRINTINO  AND   BOOKBINDINO  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


Ts 


BOOK   SECOND 
THE     PRINCESS 


BOOK    SECOND:    THE    PRINCESS 


PART  FOURTH 

XXV 

IT  was  not  till  many  days  had  passed  that  the  Prin 
cess  began  to  accept  the  idea  of  having  done,  a  little, 
something  she  was  not  always  doing,  or  indeed  that  of 
having  listened  to  any  inward  voice  that  spoke  in  a 
new  tone.  Yet  these  instinctive  postponements  of  re 
flection  were  the  fruit,  positively,  of  recognitions  and 
perceptions  already  active ;  of  the  sense,  above  all,  that 
she  had  made,  at  a  particular  hour,  made  by  the  mere 
touch  of  her  hand,  a  difference  in  the  situation  so  long 
present  to  her  as  practically  unattackable.  This  situa 
tion  had  been  occupying,  for  months  and  months,  the 
very  centre  of  the  garden  of  her  life,  but  it  had  reared 
itself  there  like  some  strange,  tall  tower  of  ivory,  or 
perhaps  rather  some  wonderful,  beautiful,  but  outland 
ish  pagoda,  a  structure  plated  with  hard,  bright  porce 
lain,  coloured  and  figured  and  adorned,  at  the  over 
hanging  eaves,  with  silver  bells  that  tinkled,  ever  so 
charmingly,  when  stirred  by  chance  airs.  She  had 

3 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

walked  round  and  round  it — that  was  what  she  felt; 
she  had  carried  on  her  existence  in  the  space  left  her 
for  circulation,  a  space  that  sometimes  seemed  ample 
and  sometimes  narrow :  looking  up,  all  the  while,  at 
the  fair  structure  that  spread  itself  so  amply  and  rose 
so  high,  but  never  quite  making  out,  as  yet,  where  she 
might  have  entered  had  she  wished.  She  had  not 
wished  till  now — such  was  the  odd  case;  and  what  was 
doubtless  equally  odd,  besides,  was  that,  though  her 
raised  eyes  seemed  to  distinguish  places  that  must 
serve,  from  within,  and  especially  far  aloft,  as  apertures 
and  outlooks,  no  door  appeared  to  give  access  from 
her  convenient  garden  level.  The  great  decorated  sur 
face  had  remained  consistently  impenetrable  and  in 
scrutable.  At  present,  however,  to  her  considering 
mind,  it  was  as  if  she  had  ceased  merely  to  circle  and 
to  scan  the  elevation,  ceased  so  vaguely,  so  quite  help 
lessly  to  stare  and  wonder :  she  had  caught  herself  dis 
tinctly  in  the  act  of  pausing,  then  in  that  of  lingering, 
and  finally  in  that  of  stepping  unprecedentedly  near. 
The  thing  might  have  been,  by  the  distance  at  which 
it  kept  her,  a  Mahometan  mosque,  with  which  no  base 
heretic  could  take  a  liberty ;  there  so  hung  about  it  the 
vision  of  one's  putting  off  one's  shoes  to  enter,  and 
even,  verily,  of  one's  paying  with  one's  life  if  found 
there  as  an  interloper.  She  had  not,  certainly,  arrived 
at  the  conception  of  paying  with  her  life  for  anything 
she  might  do;  but  it  was  nevertheless  quite  as  if  she 
had  sounded  with  a  tap  or  two  one  of  the  rare  porce 
lain  plates.  She  had  knocked,  in  short — though  she 
could  scarce  have  said  whether  for  admission  or  for 

4 


THE   PRINCESS 

what ;  she  had  applied  her  hand  to  a  cool  smooth  spot 
and  had  waited  to  see  what  would  happen.  Something 
had  happened;  it  was  as  if  a  sound,  at  her  touch,  after 
a  little,  had  come  back  to  her  from  within;  a  sound 
sufficiently  suggesting  that  her  approach  had  been 
noted. 

If  this  image,  however,  may  represent  our  young 
woman's  consciousness  of  a  recent  change  in  her  life 
— a  change  now  but  a  few  days  old — it  must  at  the 
same  time  be  observed  that  she  both  sought  and  found 
in  renewed  circulation,  as  I  have  called  it,  a  measure 
of  relief  from  the  idea  of  having  perhaps  to  answer  for 
what  she  had  done.  The  pagoda  in  her  blooming  gar 
den  figured  the  arrangement — how  otherwise  was  it  to 
be  named  ? — by  which,  so  strikingly,  she  had  been  able 
to  marry  without  breaking,  as  she  liked  to  put  it,  with 
her  past.  She  had  surrendered  herself  to  her  hus 
band  without  the  shadow  of  a  reserve  or  a  condition, 
and  yet  she  had  not,  all  the  while,  given  up  her  father 
by  the  least  little  inch.  She  had  compassed  the  high 
felicity  of  seeing  the  two  men  beautifully  take  to  each 
other,  and  nothing  in  her  marriage  had  marked  it  as 
more  happy  than  this  fact  of  its  having  practically 
given  the  elder,  the  lonelier,  a  new  friend.  What  had 
moreover  all  the  while  enriched  the  whole  aspect  of 
success  was  that  the  latter's  marriage  had  been  no  more 
measurably  paid  for  than  her  own.  His  having  taken 
the  same  great  step  in  the  same  free  way  had  not  in  the 
least  involved  the  relegation  of  his  daughter.  That  it 
was  remarkable  they  should  have  been  able  at  once  so 
to  separate  and  so  to  keep  together  had  never  for  a 

5 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

moment,  from  however  far  back,  been  equivocal  to  her ; 
that  it  was  remarkable  had  in  fact  quite  counted,  at 
first  and  always,  and  for  each  of  them  equally,  as  part 
of  their  inspiration  and  their  support.  There  were 
plenty  of  singular  things  they  were  not  enamoured  of 
— flights  of  brilliancy,  of  audacity,  of  originality,  that, 
speaking  at  least  for  the  dear  man  and  herself,  were 
not  at  all  in  their  line ;  but  they  liked  to  think  they  had 
given  their  life  this  unusual  extension  and  this  liberal 
form,  which  many  families,  many  couples,  and  still 
more  many  pairs  of  couples,  would  not  have  found 
workable.  That  last  truth  had  been  distinctly  brought 
home  to  them  by  the  bright  testimony,  the  quite  ex 
plicit  envy,  of  most  of  their  friends,  who  had  remarked 
to  them  again  and  again  that  they  must,  on  all  the 
showing,  to  keep  on  such  terms,  be  people  of  the  high 
est  amiability — equally  including  in  the  praise,  of 
course,  Amerigo  and  Charlotte.  It  had  given  them 
pleasure — as  how  should  it  not? — to  find  themselves 
shed  such  a  glamour;  it  had  certainly,  that  is,  given 
pleasure  to  her  father  and  herself,  both  of  them  dis- 
tinguishably  of  a  nature  so  slow  to  presume  that  they 
would  scarce  have  been  sure  of  their  triumph  without 
this  pretty  reflection  of  it.  So  it  was  that  their  felicity 
had  fructified;  so  it  was  that  the  ivory  tower,  visible 
and  admirable  doubtless,  from  any  point  of  the  social 
field,  had  risen  stage  by  stage.  Maggie's  actual  re 
luctance  to  ask  herself  with  proportionate  sharpness 
why  she  had  ceased  to  take  comfort  in  the  sight  of  it 
represented  accordingly  a  lapse  from  that  ideal  con 
sistency  on  \vhich  her  moral  comfort  almost  at  any 

6 


THE   PRINCESS 

time  depended.  To  remain  consistent  she  had  always 
been  capable  of  cutting  down  more  or  less  her  prior 
term. 

Moving  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  as  in  the  dark 
ening  shadow  of  a  false  position,  she  reflected  that  she 
should  either  not  have  ceased  to  be  right — that  is,  to  be 
confident — or  have  recognised  that  she  was  wrong; 
though  she  tried  to  deal  with  herself,  for  a  space,  only 
as  a  silken-coated  spaniel  who  has  scrambled  out  of  a 
pond  and  who  rattles  the  water  from  his  ears.  Her 
shake  of  her  head,  again  and  again,  as  she  went,  was 
much  of  that  order,  and  she  had  the  resource,  to  which, 
save  for  the  rude  equivalent  of  his  generalising  bark, 
the  spaniel  would  have  been  a  stranger,  of  humming 
to  herself  hard  as  a  sign  that  nothing  had  happened  to 
her.  She  had  not,  so  to  speak,  fallen  in ;  she  had  had 
no  accident  and  had  not  got  wet ;  this  at  any  rate  was 
her  pretension  until  after  she  began  a  little  to  wonder 
if  she  mightn't,  with  or  without  exposure,  have  taken 
cold.  She  could  at  all  events  remember  no  time  at 
which  she  had  felt  so  excited,  and  certainly  none — 
which  was  another  special  point — that  so  brought  with 
it  as  well  the  necessity  for  concealing  excitement.  This 
birth  of  a  new  eagerness  became  a  high  pastime,  in  her 
view,  precisely  by  reason  of  the  ingenuity  required  for 
keeping  the  thing  born  out  of  sight.  The  ingenuity 
was  thus  a  private  and  absorbing  exercise,  in  the  light 
of  which,  might  I  so  far  multiply  my  metaphors,  I 
should  compare  her  to  the  frightened  but  clinging 
young  mother  of  an  unlawful  child.  The  idea  that 
had  possession  of  her  would  be,  by  our  new  analogy, 

Z 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

the  proof  of  her  misadventure,  but  likewise,  all  the 
while,  only  another  sign  of  a  relation  that  was  more 
to  her  than  anything  on  earth.  She  had  lived  long 
enough  to  make  out  for  herself  that  any  deep-seated 
passion  has  its  pangs  as  well  as  its  joys,  and  that  we 
are  made  by  its  aches  and  its  anxieties  most  richly 
conscious  of  it.  She  had  never  doubted  of  the  force 
of  the  feeling  that  bound  her  to  her  husband;  but  to 
become  aware,  almost  suddenly,  that  it  had  begun  to 
vibrate  with  a  violence  that  had  some  of  the  effect  of 
a  strain  would,  rightly  looked  at,  after  all  but  show 
that  she  was,  like  thousands  of  women,  every  day,  act 
ing  up  to  the  full  privilege  of  passion.  Why  in  the 
world  shouldn't  she,  with  every  right — if,  on  consid 
eration,  she  saw  no  good  reason  against  it  ?  The  best 
reason  against  it  would  have  been  the  possibility  of 
some  consequence  disagreeable  or  inconvenient  to 
others — especially  to  such  others  as  had  never  incom 
moded  her  by  the  egotism  of  their  passions ;  but  if  once 
that  danger  were  duly  guarded  against  the  fulness  of 
one's  measure  amounted  to  no  more  than  the  equal  use 
of  one's  faculties  or  the  proper  playing  of  one's  part. 
It  had  come  to  the  Princess,  obscurely  at  first,  but  little 
by  little  more  conceivably,  that  her  faculties  had  not 
for  a  good  while  been  concomitantly  used ;  the  case  re 
sembled  in  a  manner  that  of  her  once-loved  dancing, 
a  matter  of  remembered  steps  that  had  grown  vague 
from  her  ceasing  to  go  to  balls.  She  would  go  to  balls 
again — that  seemed,  freely,  even  crudely,  stated,  the 
remedy;  she  would  take  out  of  the  deep  receptacles  in 
which  she  had  laid  them  away  the  various  ornaments 

8 


THE   PRINCESS 

congruous  with  the  greater  occasions,  and  of  which  her 
store,  she  liked  to  think,  was  none  of  the  smallest. 
She  would  have  been  easily  to  be  figured  for  us  at  this 
occupation;  dipping,  at  off  moments  and  quiet  hours, 
in  snatched  visits  and  by  draughty  candle-light,  into 
her  rich  collections  and  seeing  her  jewels  again  a  little 
shyly,  but  all  unmistakably,  glow.  That  in  fact  may 
pass  as  the  very  picture  of  her  semi-smothered  agita 
tion,  of  the  diversion  she  to  some  extent  successfully 
found  in  referring  her  crisis,  so  far  as  was  possible,  to 
the  mere  working  of  her  own  needs. 

It  must  be  added,  however,  that  she  would  have  been 
at  a  loss  to  determine — and  certainly  at  first — to  which 
order,  that  of  self-control  or  that  of  large  expression, 
the  step  she  had  taken  the  afternoon  of  her  husband's 
return  from  Matcham  with  his  companion  properly 
belonged.  For  it  had  been  a  step,  distinctly,  on  Mag 
gie's  part,  her  deciding  to  do  something,  just  then  and 
there,  which  would  strike  Amerigo  as  unusual,  and 
this  even  though  her  departure  from  custom  had  merely 
consisted  in  her  so  arranging  that  he  wouldn't  find  her, 
as  he  would  definitely  expect  to  do,  in  Eaton  Square. 
He  would  have,  strangely  enough,  as  might  seem  to 
him,  to  come  back  home  for  it,  and  there  get  the  im 
pression  of  her  rather  pointedly,  or  at  least  all  impa 
tiently  and  independently,  awaiting  him.  These  were 
small  variations  and  mild  manoeuvres,  but  they  went 
accompanied  on  Maggie's  part,  as  we  have  mentioned, 
with  an  infinite  sense  of  intention.  Her  watching  by 
his  fireside  for  her  husband's  return  from  an  absence 
might  superficially  have  presented  itself  as  the  most 

9 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

natural  act  in  the  world,  and  the  only  one,  into  the  bar 
gain,  on  which  he  would  positively  have  reckoned. 
It  fell  by  this  circumstance  into  the  order  of  plain  mat 
ters,  and  yet  the  very  aspect  by  which  it  was,  in  the 
event,  handed  over  to  her  brooding  fancy  was  the  fact 
that  she  had  done  with  it  all  she  had  designed.  She 
had  put  her  thought  to  the  proof,  and  the  proof  had 
shown  its  edge ;  this  was  what  was  before  her,  that  she 
was  no  longer  playing  with  blunt  and  idle  tools,  with 
weapons  that  didn't  cut.  There  passed  across  her 
vision  ten  times  a  day  the  gleam  of  a  bare  blade,  and  at 
this  it  was  that  she  most  shut  her  eyes,  most  knew  the 
impulse  to  cheat  herself  with  motion  and  sound.  She 
had  merely  driven,  on  a  certain  Wednesday,  to  Port 
land  Place,  instead  of  remaining  in  Eaton  Square,  and 
— she  privately  repeated  it  again  and  again — there  had 
appeared  beforehand  no  reason  why  she  should  have 
seen  the  mantle  of  history  flung,  by  a  single  sharp 
sweep,  over  so  commonplace  a  deed.  That,  all  the  same, 
was  what  had  happened;  it  had  been  bitten  into  her 
mind,  all  in  an  hour,  that  nothing  she  had  ever  done 
would  hereafter,  in  some  way  yet  to  be  determined,  so 
count  for  her — perhaps  not  even  what  she  had  done  in 
accepting,  in  their  old  golden  Rome,  Amerigo's  pro 
posal  of  marriage.  And  yet,  by  her  little  crouching 
posture  there,  that  of  a  timid  tigress,  she  had  meant 
nothing  recklessly  ultimate,  nothing  clumsily  funda 
mental;  so  that  she  called  it  names,  the  invidious,  the 
grotesque  attitude,  holding  it  up  to  her  own  ridicule, 
reducing  so  far  as  she  could  the  portee  of  what  had  fol 
lowed  it.  She  had  but  wanted  to  get  nearer — nearer 

10 


THE   PRINCESS 

to  something  indeed  that  she  couldn't,  that  she 
wouldn't,  even  to  herself,  describe;  and  the  degree  of 
this  achieved  nearness  was  what  had  been  in  advance 
incalculable.  Her  actual  multiplication  of  distrac 
tions  and  suppressions,  whatever  it  did  for  her,  failed 
to  prevent  her  living  over  again  any  chosen  minute — 
for  she  could  choose  them,  she  could  fix  them — of  the 
freshness  of  relation  produced  by  her  having  adminis 
tered  to  her  husband  the  first  surprise  to  which  she  had 
ever  treated  him.  It  had  been  a  poor  thing,  but  it  had 
been  all  her  own,  and  the  whole  passage  was  back- 
wardly  there,  a  great  picture  hung  on  the  wall  of  her 
daily  life,  for  her  to  make  what  she  would  of. 

It  fell,  for  retrospect,  into  a  succession  of  moments 
that  were  zvatchable  still ;  almost  in  the  manner  of  the 
different  things  done  during  a  scene  on  the  stage,  some 
scene  so  acted  as  to  have  left  a  great  impression  on  the 
tenant  of  one  of  the  stalls.  Several  of  these  moments 
stood  out  beyond  the  others,  and  those  she  could  feel 
again  most,  count  again  like  the  firm  pearls  on  a  string, 
had  belonged  more  particularly  to  the  lapse  of  time 
before  dinner — dinner  which  had  been  so  late,  quite  at 
nine  o'clock,  that  evening,  thanks  to  the  final  lateness 
of  Amerigo's  own  advent.  These  were  parts  of  the 
experience — though  in  fact  there  had  been  a  good 
many  of  them — between  which  her  impression  could 
continue  sharply  to  discriminate.  Before  the  subse 
quent  passages,  much  later  on,  it  was  to  be  said,  the 
flame  of  memory  turned  to  an  equalising  glow,  that  of 
a  lamp  in  some  side-chapel  in  which  incense  was  thick. 
The  great  moment,  at  any  rate,  for  conscious  repos- 

ii 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

session,  was  doubtless  the  first :  the  strange  little  timed 
silence  which  she  had  fully  gauged,  on  the  spot,  as 
altogether  beyond  her  own  intention,  but  which — for 
just  how  long?  should  she  ever  really  know  for  just 
how  long? — she  could  do  nothing  to  break.  She  was 
in  the  smaller  drawing-room,  in  which  she  always 
"sat,"  and  she  had,  by  calculation,  dressed  for  dinner 
on  finally  coming  in.  It  was  a  wonder  how  many 
things  she  had  calculated  in  respect  to  this  small  inci 
dent — a  matter  for  the  importance  of  which  she  had  so 
quite  indefinite  a  measure.  He  would  be  late — he 
would  be  very  late;  that  was  the  one  certainty  that 
seemed  to  look  her  in  the  face.  There  was  still  also 
the  possibility  that  if  he  drove  with  Charlotte  straight 
to  Eaton  Square  he  might  think  it  best  to  remain  there 
even  on  learning  she  had  come  away.  She  had  left 
no  message  for  him  on  any  such  chance;  this  was 
another  of  her  small  shades  of  decision,  though  the 
effect  of  it  might  be  to  keep  him  still  longer  absent. 
He  might  suppose  she  would  already  have  dined;  he 
might  stay,  with  all  he  would  have  to  tell,  just  on  pur 
pose  to  be  nice  to  her  father.  She  had  known  him  to 
stretch  the  point,  to  these  beautiful  ends,  far  beyond 
that ;  he  had  more  than  once  stretched  it  to  the  sacrifice 
of  the  opportunity  of  dressing. 

If  she  herself  had  now  avoided  any  such  sacrifice, 
and  had  made  herself,  during  the  time  at  her  disposal, 
quite  inordinately  fresh  and  quite  positively  smart,  this 
had  probably  added,  while  she  waited  and  waited,  to 
that  very  tension  of  spirit  in  which  she  was  afterwards 
to  find  the  image  of  her  having  crouched.  She  did  her 

12 


THE   PRINCESS 

best,  quite  intensely,  by  herself,  to  banish  any  such  ap 
pearance;  she  couldn't  help  it  if  she  couldn't  read  her 
pale  novel — ah,  that,  par  exemple,  was  beyond  her! — 
but  she  could  at  least  sit  by  the  lamp  with  the  book,  sit 
there  with  her  newest  frock,  worn  for  the  first  time, 
sticking  out,  all  round  her,  quite  stiff  and  grand ;  even 
perhaps  a  little  too  stiff  and  too  grand  for  a  familiar 
and  domestic  frock,  yet  marked  none  the  less,  this  time, 
she  ventured  to  hope,  by  incontestable  intrinsic  merit. 
She  had  glanced  repeatedly  at  the  clock,  but  she  had 
refused  herself  the  weak  indulgence  of  walking  up  and 
down,  though  the  act  of  doing  so,  she  knew,  would 
make  her  feel,  on  the  polished  floor,  with  the  rustle  and 
the  "hang,"  still  more  beautifully  bedecked.  The 
difficulty  was  that  it  would  also  make  her  feel  herself 
still  more  sharply  in  a  state;  which  was  exactly  what 
she  proposed  not  to  do.  The  only  drops  of  her  anxiety 
had  been  when  her  thought  strayed  complacently,  with 
her  eyes,  to  the  front  of  her  gown,  which  was  in  a 
manner  a  refuge,  a  beguilement,  especially  when  she 
was  able  to  fix  it  long  enough  to  wonder  if  it  would  at 
last  really  satisfy  Charlotte.  She  had  ever  been,  in 
respect  to  her  clothes,  rather  timorous  and  uncertain; 
for  the  last  year,  above  all,  she  had  lived  in  the  light  of 
Charlotte's  possible  and  rather  inscrutable  judgment 
of  them.  Charlotte's  own  were  simply  the  most  charm 
ing  and  interesting  that  any  woman  had  ever  put  on ; 
there  was  a  kind  of  poetic  justice  in  her  being  at  last 
able,  in  this  particular,  thanks  to  means,  thanks  quite  to 
omnipotence,  freely  to  exercise  her  genius.  But  Mag 
gie  would  have  described  herself  as,  in  these  connec- 

13 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

tions,  constantly  and  intimately  "torn";  conscious  on 
one  side  of  the  impossibility  of  copying  her  compan 
ion  and  conscious  on  the  other  of  the  impossibility  of 
sounding  her,  independently,  to  the  bottom.  Yes,  it 
was  one  of  the  things  she  should  go  down  to  her  grave 
without  having  known — how  Charlotte,  after  all  had 
been  said,  really  thought  her  stepdaughter  looked 
under  any  supposedly  ingenious  personal  experiment. 
She  had  always  been  lovely  about  the  stepdaughter's 
material  braveries — had  done,  for  her,  the  very  best 
with  them;  but  there  had  ever  fitfully  danced  at  the 
back  of  Maggie's  head  the  suspicion  that  these  expres 
sions  were  mercies,  not  judgments,  embodying  no 
absolute,  but  only  a  relative,  frankness.  Hadn't  Char 
lotte,  with  so  perfect  a  critical  vision,  if  the  truth  were 
known,  given  her  up  as  hopeless — hopeless  by  a  seri 
ous  standard,  and  thereby  invented  for  her  a  different 
and  inferior  one,  in  which,  as  the  only  thing  to  be  done, 
she  patiently  and  soothingly  abetted  her  ?  Hadn't  she, 
in  other  words,  assented  in  secret  despair,  perhaps  even 
in  secret  irritation,  to  her  being  ridiculous? — so  that 
the  best  now  possible  was  to  wonder,  once  in  a  great 
while,  whether  one  mightn't  give  her  the  surprise  of 
something  a  little  less  out  of  the  true  note  than  usual. 
Something  of  this  kind  was  the  question  that  Maggie, 
while  the  absentees  still  delayed,  asked  of  the  appear 
ance  she  was  endeavouring  to  present ;  but  with  the  re 
sult,  repeatedly  again,  that  it  only  went  and  lost  itself 
in  the  thick  air  that  had  begun  more  and  more  to  hang, 
for  our  young  woman,  over  her  accumulations  of  the 
unanswered.  They  were  there,  these  accumulations; 

14 


THE   PRINCESS 

they  were  like  a  roomful  of  confused  objects,  never  as 
yet  "sorted,"  which  for  some  time  now  she  had  been 
passing  and  re-passing,  along  the  corridor  of  her  life. 
She  passed  it  when  she  could  without  opening  the  door ; 
then,  on  occasion,  she  turned  the  key  to  throw  in  a  fresh 
contribution.  So  it  was  that  she  had  been  getting 
things  out  of  the  way.  They  rejoined  the  rest  of  the 
confusion ;  it  was  as  if  they  found  their  place,  by  some 
instinct  of  affinity,  in  the  heap.  They  knew,  in  short, 
where  to  go ;  and  when  she,  at  present,  by  a  mental  act, 
once  more  pushed  the  door  open,  she  had  practically 
a  sense  of  method  and  experience.  What  she  should 
never  know  about  Charlotte's  thought — she  tossed  that 
in.  It  would  find  itself  in  company,  and  she  might 
at  last  have  been  standing  there  long  enough  to  see  it 
fall  into  its  corner.  The  sight  moreover  would  doubt 
less  have  made  her  stare,  had  her  attention  been  more 
free — the  sight  of  the  mass  of  vain  things,  congruous, 
incongruous,  that  awaited  every  addition.  It  made 
her  in  fact,  with  a  vague  gasp,  turn  away,  and  what 
had  further  determined  this  was  the  final  sharp  ex 
tinction  of  the  inward  scene  by  the  outward.  The 
quite  different  door  had  opened  and  her  husband  was 
there. 

It  had  been  as  strange  as  she  could  consent,  after 
wards,  to  think  it;  it  had  been,  essentially,  what  had 
made  the  abrupt  bend  in  her  life:  he  had  come  back, 
had  followed  her  from  the  other  house,  visibly  uncer 
tain — this  was  written  in  the  face  he  for  the  first  min 
ute  showed  her.  It  had  been  written  only  for  those 
seconds,  and  it  had  appeared  to  go,  quickly,  after  they 

15 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

began  to  talk;  but  while  it  lasted  it  had  been  written 
large,  and,  though  she  didn't  quite  know  what  she  had 
expected  of  him,  she  felt  she  hadn't  expected  the  least 
shade  of  embarrassment.  What  had  made  the  embar 
rassment — she  called  it  embarrassment  so  as  to  be  able 
to  assure  herself  she  put  it  at  the  very  worst — what  had 
made  the  particular  look  was  his  thus  distinguishably 
wishing  to  see  how  he  should  find  her.  Why  first ? — 
that  had,  later  on,  kept  coming  to  her;  the  question 
dangled  there  as  if  it  were  the  key  to  everything.  With 
the  sense  of  it  on  the  spot,  she  had  felt,  overwhelmingly, 
that  she  was  significant,  that  so  she  must  instantly 
strike  him,  and  that  this  had  a  kind  of  violence  beyond 
what  she  had  intended.  It  was  in  fact  even  at  the 
moment  not  absent  from  her  view  that  he  might  easily 
have  made  an  abject  fool  of  her — at  least  for  the  time. 
She  had  indeed,  for  just  ten  seconds,  been  afraid  of 
some  such  turn  :  the  uncertainty  in  his  face  had  become 
so,  the  next  thing,  an  uncertainty  in  the  very  air. 
Three  words  of  impatience  the  least  bit  loud,  some  out 
break  of  "What  in  the  world  are  you  'up  to,'  and  what 
do  you  mean?"  any  note  of  that  sort  would  instantly 
have  brought  her  low — and  this  all  the  more  that 
heaven  knew  she  hadn't  in  any  manner  designed  to  be 
high.  It  was  such  a  trifle,  her  small  breach  with  cus 
tom,  or  at  any  rate  with  his  natural  presumption,  that 
all  magnitude  of  wonder  had  already  had,  before  one 
could  deprecate  the  shadow  of  it,  the  effect  of  a  com 
plication.  It  had  made  for  him  some  difference  that 
she  couldn't  measure,  this  meeting  him  at  home  and 
alone  instead  of  elsewhere  and  with  others,  and  back 

16 


THE   PRINCESS 

and  back  it  kept  coming  to  her  that  the  blankness  he 
showed  her  before  he  was  able  to  see  might,  should 
she  choose  to  insist  on  it,  have  a  meaning — have,  as 
who  should  say,  an  historic  value — beyond  the  im 
portance  of  momentary  expressions  in  general.  She 
had  naturally  had  on  the  spot  no  ready  notion  of  what 
he  might  want  to  see ;  it  was  enough  for  a  ready  notion, 
not  to  speak  of  a  beating  heart,  that  he  did  see,  that  he 
saw  his  wife  in  her  own  drawing-room  at  the  hour 
when  she  would  most  properly  be  there. 

He  hadn't  in  any  way  challenged  her,  it  was  true, 
and,  after  those  instants  during  which  she  now  believed 
him  to  have  been  harbouring  the  impression  of  some 
thing  unusually  prepared  and  pointed  in  her  attitude 
and  array,  he  had  advanced  upon  her  smiling  and  smil 
ing,  and  thus,  without  hesitation  at  the  last,  had  taken 
her  into  his  arms.  The  hesitation  had  been  at  the  first, 
and  she  at  present  saw  that  he  had  surmounted  it  with 
out  her  help.  She  had  given  him  no  help ;  for  if,  on 
the  one  hand,  she  couldn't  speak  for  hesitation,  so  on 
the  other — and  especially  as  he  didn't  ask  her — she 
couldn't  explain  why  she  was  agitated.  She  had 
known  it  all  the  while  down  to  her  toes,  known  it  in 
his  presence  with  fresh  intensity,  and  if  he  had  uttered 
but  a  question  it  would  have  pressed  in  her  the  spring 
of  recklessness.  It  had  been  strange  that  the  most 
natural  thing  of  all  to  say  to  him  should  have  had  that 
appearance ;  but  she  was  more  than  ever  conscious  that 
any  appearance  she  had  would  come  round,  more  or 
less  straight,  to  her  father,  whose  life  was  now  so  quiet, 
on  the  basis  accepted  for  it,  that  any  alteration  of  his 

VOL.  II.— a  17 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

consciousness,  even  in  the  possible  sense  of  enliven- 
ment,  would  make  their  precious  equilibrium  waver. 
That  was  at  the  bottom  of  her  mind,  that  their  equilib 
rium  was  everything,  and  that  it  was  practically  pre 
carious,  a  matter  of  a  hair's  breadth  for  the  loss  of  the 
balance.  It  was  the  equilibrium,  or  at  all  events  her 
conscious  fear  about  it,  that  had  brought  her  heart  into 
her  mouth;  and  the  same  fear  was,  on  either  side,  in 
the  silent  look  she  and  Amerigo  had  exchanged.  The 
happy  balance  that  demanded  this  amount  of  consid 
eration  was  truly  thus,  as  by  its  own  confession,  a  deli 
cate  matter ;  but  that  her  husband  had  also  his  habit  of 
anxiety  and  his  general  caution  only  brought  them, 
after  all,  more  closely  together.  It  would  have  been 
most  beautifully,  therefore,  in  the  name  of  the  equi 
librium,  and  in  that  of  her  joy  at  their  feeling  so  ex 
actly  the  same  about  it,  that  she  might  have  spoken  if 
she  had  permitted  the  truth  on  the  subject  of  her 
behaviour  to  ring  out — on  the  subject  of  that  poor  little 
behaviour  which  was  for  the  moment  so  very  limited 
a  case  of  eccentricity. 

1  'Why,  why'  have  I  made  this  evening  such  a  point 
of  our  not  all  dining  together  ?  Well,  because  I've  all 
day  been  so  wanting  you  alone  that  I  finally  couldn't 
bear  it,  and  that  there  didn't  seem  any  great  reason  why 
I  should  try  to.  That  came  to  me — funny  as  it  may  at 
first  sound,  with  all  the  things  we've  so  wonderfully 
got  into  the  way  of  bearing  for  each  other.  You've 
seemed  these  last  days — I  don't  know  what :  more 
absent  than  ever  before,  too  absent  for  us  merely  to  go 
on  so.  It's  all  very  well,  and  I  perfectly  see  how  beau- 

18 


THE   PRINCESS 

tiful  it  is,  all  round ;  but  there  comes  a  day  when  some 
thing  snaps,  when  the  full  cup,  filled  to  the  very  brim, 
begins  to  flow  over.  That's  what  has  happened  to  my 
need  of  you — the  cup,  all  day,  has  been  too  full  to 
carry.  So  here  I  am  with  it,  spilling  it  over  you — and 
just  for  the  reason  that  is  the  reason  of  my  life.  After 
all,  I've  scarcely  to  explain  that  I'm  as  much  in  love 
with  you  now  as  the  first  hour;  except  that  there  are 
some  hours — which  I  know  when  they  come,  because 
they  almost  frighten  me — that  show  me  I'm  even  more 
so.  They  come  of  themselves — and,  ah,  they've  been 

coming !     After  all,  after  all !"     Some  such  words 

as  those  were  what  didn't  ring  out,  yet  it  was  as  if  even 
the  unuttered  sound  had  been  quenched  here  in  its  own 
quaver.  It  was  where  utterance  would  have  broken 
down  by  its  very  weight  if  he  had  let  it  get  so  far. 
Without  that  extremity,  at  the  end  of  a  moment,  he  had 
taken  in  what  he  needed  to  take — that  his  wife  was 
testifying,  that  she  adored  and  missed  and  desired  him. 
"After  all,  after  all,"  since  she  put  it  so,  she  was  right. 
That  was  what  he  had  to  respond  to ;  that  was  what, 
from  the  moment  that,  as  has  been  said,  he  "saw,"  he 
had  to  treat  as  the  most  pertinent  thing  possible.  He 
held  her  close  and  long,  in  expression  of  their  personal 
reunion — this,  obviously,  was  one  way  of  doing  so.  He 
rubbed  his  cheek,  tenderly,  and  with  a  deep  vague 
murmur,  against  her  face,  that  side  of  her  face  she 
was  not  pressing  to  his  breast.  That  was,  not  less 
obviously,  another  way,  and  there  were  ways  enough, 
in  short,  for  his  extemporised  ease,  for  the  good 
humour  she  was  afterwards  to  find  herself  thinking  of 

19 


as  his  infinite  tact.  This  last  was  partly,  no  doubt, 
because  the  question  of  tact  might  be  felt  as  having 
come  up  at  the  end  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  during 
which  he  had  liberally  talked  and  she  had  genially 
questioned.  He  had  told  her  of  his  day,  the  happy 
thought  of  his  roundabout  journey  with  Charlotte,  all 
their  cathedral-hunting  adventure,  and  how  it  had 
turned  out  rather  more  of  an  affair  than  they  expected. 
The  moral  of  it  was,  at  any  rate,  that  he  was  tired, 
verily,  and  must  have  a  bath  and  dress — to  which  end 
she  would  kindly  excuse  him  for  the  shortest  time  pos 
sible.  She  was  to  remember  afterwards  something 
that  had  passed  between  them  on  this — how  he  had 
looked,  for  her,  during  an  instant,  at  the  door,  before 
going  out,  how  he  had  met  her  asking  him,  in  hesita 
tion  first,  then  quickly  in  decision,  whether  she  couldn't 
help  him  by  going  up  with  him.  He  had  perhaps  also 
for  a  moment  hesitated,  but  he  had  declined  her  offer, 
and  she  was  to  preserve,  as  I  say,  the  memory  of  the 
smile  with  which  he  had  opined  that  at  that  rate  they 
wouldn't  dine  till  ten  o'clock  and  that  he  should  go 
straighter  and  faster  alone.  Such  things,  as  I  say, 
were  to  come  back  to  her — they  played,  through  her 
full  after-sense,  like  lights  on  the  whole  impression ;  the 
subsequent  parts  of  the  experience  were  not  to  have 
blurred  their  distinctness.  One  of  these  subsequent 
parts,  the  first,  had  been  the  not  inconsiderable  length, 
to  her  later  and  more  analytic  consciousness,  of  this 
second  wait  for  her  husband's  reappearance.  She 
might  certainly,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  had 
she  gone  up  with  him,  have  been  more  in  his  way  than 

2O 


THE   PRINCESS 

not,  since  people  could  really,  almost  always,  hurry 
better  without  help  than  with  it.  Still,  she  could 
hardly  have  made  him  take  more  time  than  he  struck 
her  as  actually  taking,  though  it  must  indeed  be  added 
that  there  was  now  in  this  much-thinking  little  person's 
state  of  mind  no  mere  crudity  of  impatience.  Some 
thing  had  happened,  rapidly,  with  the  beautiful  sight 
of  him  and  with  the  drop  of  her  fear  of  having  annoyed 
him  by  making  him  go  to  and  fro.  Subsidence  of  the 
fearsome,  for  Maggie's  spirit,  was  always,  at  first, 
positive  emergence  of  the  sweet,  and  it  was  long  since 
anything  had  been  so  sweet  to  her  as  the  particular 
quality  suddenly  given  by  her  present  emotion  to  the 
sense  of  possession. 


21 


XXVI 

AMERIGO  was  away  from  her  again,  as  she  sat  there, 
as  she  walked  there  without  him — for  she  had,  with 
the  difference  of  his  presence  in  the  house,  ceased  to 
keep  herself  from  moving  about;  but  the  hour  was 
filled  nevertheless  with  the  effect  of  his  nearness,  and 
above  all  with  the  effect,  strange  in  an  intimacy  so 
established,  of  an  almost  renewed  vision  of  the  facts 
of  his  aspect.  She  had  seen  him  last  but  five  days 
since,  yet  he  had  stood  there  before  her  as  if  restored 
from  some  far  country,  some  long  voyage,  some  com 
bination  of  dangers  or  fatigues.  This  unquenchable 
variety  in  his  appeal  to  her  interest,  what  did  it  mean 
but  that — reduced  to  the  flatness  of  mere  statement — 
she  was  married,  by  good  fortune,  to  an  altogether 
dazzling  person  ?  That  was  an  old,  old  story,  but  the 
truth  of  it  shone  out  to  her  like  the  beauty  of  some 
family  picture,  some  mellow  portrait  of  an  ancestor, 
that  she  might  have  been  looking  at,  almost  in  sur 
prise,  after  a  long  intermission.  The  dazzling  person 
was  upstairs  and  she  was  down,  and  there  were  more 
over  the  other  facts  of  the  selection  and  decision  that 
this  demonstration  of  her  own  had  required,  and  of 
the  constant  care  that  the  equilibrium  involved ;  but  she 
had,  all  the  same,  never  felt  so  absorbingly  married,  so 

22 


THE   PRINCESS 

abjectly  conscious  of  a  master  of  her  fate.  He  could 
do  what  he  would  with  her ;  in  fact  what  was  actually 
happening  was  that  he  was  actually  doing  it.  "What 
he  would,"  what  he  really  would — only  that  quantity 
itself  escaped  perhaps,  in  the  brightness  of  the  high 
harmony,  familiar  naming  and  discussing.  It  was 
enough  of  a  recognition  for  her  that,  whatever  the 
thing  he  might  desire,  he  would  always  absolutely 
bring  it  off.  She  knew  at  this  moment,  without  a 
question,  with  the  fullest  surrender,  how  he  had 
brought  off,  in  her,  by  scarce  more  than  a  single  allu 
sion,  a  perfect  flutter  of  tenderness.  If  he  had  come 
back  tired,  tired  from  his  long  day,  the  exertion  had 
been,  literally,  in  her  service  and  her  father's.  They 
two  had  sat  at  home  at  peace,  the  Principino  between 
them,  the  complications  of  life  kept  down,  the  bores 
sifted  out,  the  large  ease  of  the  home  preserved,  be 
cause  of  the  way  the  others  held  the  field  and  braved 
the  weather.  Amerigo  never  complained — any  more 
than,  for  that  matter,  Charlotte  did ;  but  she  seemed  to 
see  to-night  as  she  had  never  yet  quite  done  that  their 
business  of  social  representation,  conceived  as  they  con 
ceived  it,  beyond  any  conception  of  her  own,  and 
conscientiously  carried  out,  was  an  affair  of  living  al 
ways  in  harness.  She  remembered  Fanny  Assingham's 
old  judgment,  that  friend's  description  of  her  father 
and  herself  as  not  living  at  all,  as  not  knowing  what  to 
do  or  what  might  be  done  for  them;  and  there  came 
back  to  her  with  it  an  echo  of  the  long  talk  they  had 
had  together,  one  September  day  at  Fawns,  under  the 
trees,  when  she  put  before  him  this  dictum  of  Fanny's. 

23 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

That  occasion  might  have  counted  for  them — she 
had  already  often  made  the  reflection — as  the  first  step 
in  an  existence  more  intelligently  arranged.  It  had 
been  an  hour  from  which  the  chain  of  causes  and 
consequences  was  definitely  traceable — so  many  things, 
and  at  the  head  of  the  list  her  father's  marriage,  having 
appeared  to  her  to  flow  from  Charlotte's  visit  to  Fawns, 
and  that  event  itself  having  flowed  from  the  memorable 
talk.  But  what  perhaps  most  came  out  in  the  light 
of  these  concatenations  was  that  it  had  been,  for  all 
the  world,  as  if  Charlotte  had  been  "had  in,"  as  the 
servants  always  said  of  extra  help,  because  they  had 
thus  suffered  it  to  be  pointed  out  to  them  that  if  their 
family  coach  lumbered  and  stuck  the  fault  was  in  its 
Jacking  its  complement  of  wheels.  Having  but  three, 
as  they  might  say,  it  had  wanted  another,  and  what 
had  Charlotte  done  from  the  first  but  begin  to  act,  on 
the  spot,  and  ever  so  smoothly  and  beautifully,  as  a 
fourth?  Nothing  had  been,  immediately,  more  mani 
fest  than  the  greater  grace  of  the  movement  of  the 
vehicle — as  to  which,  for  the  completeness  of  her 
image,  Maggie  was  now  supremely  to  feel  how  every 
strain  had  been  lightened  for  herself.  So  far  as  she 
was  one  of  the  wheels  she  had  but  to  keep  in  her  place ; 
since  the  work  was  done  for  her  she  felt  no  weight, 
and  it  wasn't  too  much  to  acknowledge  that  she  had 
scarce  to  turn  round.  She  had  a  long  pause  before 
the  fire  during  which  she  might  have  been  fixing  with 
intensity  her  projected  vision,  have  been  conscious 
even  of  its  taking  an  absurd,  fantastic  shape.  She 
might  have  been  watching  the  family  coach  pass  and 

24 


THE   PRINCESS 

noting  that,  somehow,  Amerigo  and  Charlotte  were 
pulling  it  while  she  and  her  father  were  not  so  much 
as  pushing.  They  were  seated  inside  together,  dand 
ling  the  Principino  and  holding  him  up  to  the  win 
dows,  to  see  and  be  seen,  like  an  infant  positively  royal ; 
so  that  the  exertion  was  all  with  the  others.  Maggie 
found  in  this  image  a  repeated  challenge;  again  and 
yet  again  she  paused  before  the  fire :  after  which,  each 
time,  in  the  manner  of  one  for  whom  a  strong  light 
has  suddenly  broken,  she  gave  herself  to  livelier  move 
ment.  She  had  seen  herself  at  last,  in  the  picture 
she  was  studying,  suddenly  jump  from  the  coach; 
whereupon,  frankly,  with  the  wonder  of  the  sight, 
her  eyes  opened  wider  and  her  heart  stood  still  for  a 
moment.  She  looked  at  the  person  so  acting  as  if 
this  person  were  somebody  else,  waiting  with  intensity 
to  see  what  would  follow.  The  person  had  taken  a 
decision — which  was  evidently  because  an  impulse 
long  gathering  had  at  last  felt  a  sharpest  pressure. 
Only  how  was  the  decision  to  be  applied? — what,  in 
particular,  would  the  figure  in  the  picture  do?  She 
looked  about  her,  from  the  middle  of  the  room,  un 
der  the  force  of  this  question,  as  if  there,  exactly,  were 
the  field  of  action  involved.  Then,  as  the  door  opened 
again,  she  recognised,  whatever  the  action,  the  form,  at 
any  rate,  of  a  first  opportunity.  Her  husband  had  re 
appeared — he  stood  before  her  refreshed,  almost  radi 
ant,  quite  reassuring.  Dressed,  anointed,  fragrant, 
ready,  above  all,  for  his  dinner,  he  smiled  at  her  over 
the  end  of  their  delay.  It  was  as  if  her  opportunity 
had  depended  on  his  look — and  now  she  saw  that  it 

25 


THE   GOLDEN    BOWL 

was  good.  There  was  still,  for  the  instant,  something 
in  suspense,  but  it  passed  more  quickly  than  on  his  pre 
vious  entrance.  He  was  already  holding  out  his  arms. 
It  was,  for  hours  and  hours,  later  on,  as  if  she  had 
somehow  been  lifted  aloft,  were  floated  and  carried 
on  some  warm  high  tide  beneath  which  stumbling- 
blocks  had  sunk  out  of  sight.  This  came  from  her 
being  again,  for  the  time,  in  the  enjoyment  of  con 
fidence,  from  her  knowing,  as  she  believed,  what  to 
do.  All  the  next  day,  and  all  the  next,  she  appeared 
to  herself  to  know  it.  She  had  a  plan,  and  she  re 
joiced  in  her  plan :  this  consisted  of  the  light  that,  sud 
denly  breaking  into  her  restless  reverie,  had  marked 
the  climax  of  that  vigil.  It  had  come  to  her  as  a 
question — "What  if  I've  abandoned  them,  you  know? 
What  if  I've  accepted  too  passively  the  funny  form 
of  our  life?"  There  would  be  a  process  of  her  own 
by  which  she  might  do  differently  in  respect  to  Ameri 
go  and  Charlotte — a  process  quite  independent  of  any 
process  of  theirs.  Such  a  solution  had  but  to  rise 
before  her  to  affect  her,  to  charm  her,  with  its  sim 
plicity,  an  advantageous  simplicity  she  had  been  stupid, 
for  so  long,  not  to  have  been  struck  by;  and  the  sim 
plicity  meanwhile  seemed  proved  by  the  success  that 
had  already  begun  to  attend  her.  She  had  only  had 
herself  to  do  something  to  see  how  immediately  it  an 
swered.  This  consciousness  of  its  having  answered 
with  her  husband  was  the  uplifting,  sustaining  wave. 
He  had  "met"  her — she  so  put  it  to  herself;  met  her 
with  an  effect  of  generosity  and  of  gaiety,  in 
especial,  on  his  coming  back  to  her  ready  for  dinner, 

26 


THE  PRINCESS 

which  she  wore  in  her  breast  as  the  token  of  an  escape 
for  them  both  from  something  not  quite  definite,  but 
clearly  much  less  good.  Even  at  that  moment,  in  fact, 
her  plan  had  begun  to  work;  she  had  been,  when  he 
brightly  reappeared,  in  the  act  of  plucking  it  out  of 
the  heart  of  her  earnestness — plucking  it,  in  the  garden 
of  thought,  as  if  it  had  been  some  full-blown  flower 
that  she  could  present  to  him  on  the  spot.  Well,  it 
was  the  flower  of  participation,  and  as  that,  then  and 
there,  she  held  it  out  to  him,  putting  straightway  into 
execution  the  idea,  so  needlessly,  so  absurdly  obscured, 
of  her  sharing  with  him,  whatever  the  enjoyment,  the 
interest,  the  experience  might  be — and  sharing  also, 
for  that  matter,  with  Charlotte. 

She  had  thrown  herself,  at  dinner,  into  every  feature 
of  the  recent  adventure  of  the  companions,  letting  him 
see,  without  reserve,  that  she  wished  to  hear  everything 
about  it,  and  making  Charlotte  in  particular,  Charlotte's 
judgment  of  Matcham,  Charlotte's  aspect,  her  success 
there,  her  effect  traceably  produced,  her  clothes  in 
imitably  worn,  her  cleverness  gracefully  displayed,  her 
social  utility,  in  fine,  brilliantly  exemplified,  the  sub 
ject  of  endless  inquiry.  Maggie's  inquiry  was  most 
sympathetic,  moreover,  for  the  whole  happy  thought 
of  the  cathedral-hunt,  which  she  was  so  glad  they  had 
entertained,  and  as  to  the  pleasant  results  of  which, 
down  to  the  cold  beef  and  bread-and-cheese,  the  queer 
old  smell  and  the  dirty  table-cloth  at  the  inn,  Amerigo 
was  good-humouredly  responsive.  He  had  looked  at 
her  across  the  table,  more  than  once,  as  if  touched  by 
the  humility  of  this  welcome  offered  to  impressions  at 

27 


THE   GOLDEN    BOWL 

second-hand,  the  amusements,  the  large  freedoms  only 
of  others — as  if  recognising  in  it  something  fairly  ex 
quisite;  and  at  the  end,  while  they  were  alone,  before 
she  had  rung  for  a  servant,  he  had  renewed  again  his 
condonation  of  the  little  irregularity,  such  as  it  was, 
on  which  she  had  ventured.  They  had  risen  together 
to  come  upstairs ;  he  had  been  talking  at  the  last  about 
some  of  the  people,  at  the  very  last  of  all  about  Lady 
Castledean  and  Mr.  Blint;  after  which  she  had  once 
more  broken  ground  on  the  matter  of  the  "type"  of 
Gloucester.  It  brought  her,  as  he  came  round  the 
table  to  join  her,  yet  another  of  his  kind  conscious 
stares,  one  of  the  looks,  visibly  beguiled,  but  at  the 
same  time  not  invisibly  puzzled,  with  which  he  had 
already  shown  his  sense  of  this  charming  grace  of  her 
curiosity.  It  was  as  if  he  might  for  a  moment  be 
going  to  say :  "You  needn't  pretend,  dearest,  quite  so 
hard,  needn't  think  it  necessary  to  care  quite  so  much !" 
— it  was  as  if  he  stood  there  before  her  with  some 
such  easy  intelligence,  some  such  intimate  reassurance, 
on  his  lips.  Her  answer  would  have  been  all  ready — 
that  she  wasn't  in  the  least  pretending;  and  she  looked 
up  at  him,  while  he  took  her  hand,  with  the  main 
tenance,  the  real  persistence,  of  her  lucid  little  plan 
in  her  eyes.  She  wanted  him  to  understand  from  that 
very  moment  that  she  was  going  to  be  with  him  again, 
quite  with  them,  together,  as  she  doubtless  hadn't  been 
since  the  "funny"  changes — that  was  really  all  one 
could  call  them — into  which  they  had  each,  as  for  the 
sake  of  the  others,  too  easily  and  too  obligingly  slipped. 
They  had  taken  too  much  for  granted  that  their  life 

28 


THE   PRINCESS 

together  required,  as  people  in  London  said,  a  special 
"form" — which  was  very  well  so  long  as  the  form  was 
kept  only  for  the  outside  world  and  was  made  no  more 
of  among  themselves  than  the  pretty  mould  of  an  iced 
pudding,  or  something  of  that  sort,  into  which,  to  help 
yourself,  you  didn't  hesitate  to  break  with  the  spoon. 
So  much  as  that  she  would,  with  an  opening,  have  al 
lowed  herself  furthermore  to  observe;  she  wanted  him 
to  understand  how  her  scheme  embraced  Charlotte 
too ;  so  that  if  he  had  but  uttered  the  acknowledgment 
she  judged  him  on  the  point  of  making — the  acknowl 
edgment  of  his  catching  at  her  brave  little  idea  for 
their  case — she  would  have  found  herself,  as  distinctly, 
voluble  almost  to  eloquence. 

What  befell,  however,  was  that  even  while  she  thus 
waited  she  felt  herself  present  at  a  process  taking  place 
rather  deeper  within  him  than  the  occasion,  on  the 
whole,  appeared  to  require — a  process  of  weighing 
something  in  the  balance,  of  considering,  deciding,  dis 
missing.  He  had  guessed  that  she  was  there  with  an 
idea,  there  in  fact  by  reason  of  her  idea;  only  this, 
oddly  enough,  was  what  at  the  last  stayed  his  words. 
She  was  helped  to  these  perceptions  by  his  now  looking 
at  her  still  harder  than  he  had  yet  done — which  really 
brought  it  to  the  turn  of  a  hair,  for  her,  that  she 
didn't  make  sure  his  notion  of  her  idea  was  the  right 
one.  It  was  the  turn  of  a  hair,  because  he  had  posses 
sion  of  her  hands  and  was  bending  toward  her,  ever 
so  kindly,  as  if  to  see,  to  understand,  more,  or  pos 
sibly  give  more — she  didn't  know  which;  and  that  had 
the  effect  of  simply  putting  her,  as  she  worid  have  said, 

29 


THE  GOLDEN  BOWL 

in  his  power.  She  gave  up,  let  her  idea  go,  let  every 
thing  go ;  her  one  consciousness  was  that  he  was  taking 
her  again  into  his  arms.  It  was  not  till  afterwards 
that  she  discriminated  as  to  this;  felt  how  the  act 
operated  with  him  instead  of  the  words  he  hadn't 
uttered — operated,  in  his  view,  as  probably  better  than 
any  words,  as  always  better,  in  fact,  at  any  time,  than 
anything.  Her  acceptance  of  it,  her  response  to  it, 
inevitable,  foredoomed,  came  back  to  her,  later  on,  as 
a  virtual  assent  to  the  assumption  he  had  thus  made 
that  there  was  really  nothing  such  a  demonstration 
didn't  anticipate  and  didn't  dispose  of,  and  that  the 
spring  acting  within  herself  moreover  might  well  have 
been,  beyond  any  other,  the  impulse  legitimately  to  pro 
voke  it.  It  made,  for  any  issue,  the  third  time  since 
his  return  that  he  had  drawn  her  to  his  breast;  and 
at  present,  holding  her  to  his  side  as  they  left  the 
room,  he  kept  her  close  for  their  moving  into  the 
hall  and  across  it,  kept  her  for  their  slow  return  to 
gether  to  the  apartments  above.  He  had  been  right, 
overwhelmingly  right,  as  to  the  felicity  of  his  tender 
ness  and  the  degree  of  her  sensibility,  but  even  while 
she  felt  these  things  sweep  all  others  away  she  tasted 
of  a  sort  of  terror  of  the  weakness  they  produced  in 
her.  It  was  still,  for  her,  that  she  had  positively 
something  to  do,  and  that  she  mustn't  be  weak  for 
this,  must  much  rather  be  strong.  For  many  hours 
after,  none  the  less,  she  remained  weak — if  weak  it 
was;  though  holding  fast  indeed  to  the  theory  of  her 
success,  since  her  agitated  overture  had  been,  after 
all,  so  unmistakably  met. 

30 


THE  PRINCESS 

She  recovered  soon  enough,  on  the  whole,  the  sense 
that  this  left  her  Charlotte  always  to  deal  with — Char 
lotte  who,  at  any  rate,  however  she  might  meet  over 
tures,  must  meet  them,  at  the  worst,  more  or  less  dif 
ferently.  Of  that  inevitability,  of  such  other  ranges 
of  response  as  were  open  to  Charlotte,  Maggie  took 
the  measure  in  approaching  her,  on  the  morrow  of  her 
return  from  Matcham,  with  the  same  show  of  desire  to 
hear  all  her  story.  She  wanted  the  whole  picture 
from  her,  as  she  had  wanted  it  from  her  companion, 
and,  promptly,  in  Eaton  Square,  whither,  without  the 
Prince,  she  repaired,  almost  ostentatiously,  for  the  pur 
pose,  this  purpose  only,  she  brought  her  repeatedly 
back  to  the  subject,  both  in  her  husband's  presence  and 
during  several  scraps  of  independent  colloquy.  Before 
her  father,  instinctively,  Maggie  took  the  ground  that 
his  wish  for  interesting  echoes  would  be  not  less  than 
her  own — allowing,  that  is,  for  everything  his  wife 
would  already  have  had  to  tell  him,  for  such  passages, 
between  them,  as  might  have  occurred  since  the  even 
ing  before.  Joining  them  after  luncheon,  reaching 
them,  in  her  desire  to  proceed  with  the  application  of 
her  idea,  before  they  had  quitted  the  breakfast-room, 
the  scene  of  their  mid-day  meal,  she  referred,  in  her 
parent's  presence,  to  what  she  might  have  lost  by  delay, 
and  expressed  the  hope  that  there  would  be  an  anec 
dote  or  two  left  for  her  to  pick  up.  Charlotte  was 
dressed  to  go  out,  and  her  husband,  it  appeared,  rather 
positively  prepared  not  to;  he  had  left  the  table,  but 
was  seated  near  the  fire  with  two  or  three  of  the 
morning  papers  and  the  residuum  of  the  second  and 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

third  posts  on  a  stand  beside  him — more  even  than  the 
usual  extravagance,  as  Maggie's  glance  made  out,  of 
circulars,  catalogues,  advertisements,  announcements 
of  sales,  foreign  envelopes  and  foreign  handwritings 
that  were  as  unmistakable  as  foreign  clothes.  Char 
lotte,  at  the  window,  looking  into  the  side-street  that 
abutted  on  the  Square,  might  have  been  watching  for 
their  visitor's  advent  before  withdrawing;  and  in  the 
light,  strange  and  coloured,  like  that  of  a  painted  pic 
ture,  which  fixed  the  impression  for  her,  objects  took 
on  values  not  hitherto  so  fully  shown.  It  was  the 
effect  of  her  quickened  sensibility;  she  knew  herself 
again  in  presence  of  a  problem,  in  need  of  a  solution 
for  which  she  must  intensely  work :  that  consciousness, 
lately  born  in  her,  had  been  taught  the  evening  before 
to  accept  a  temporary  lapse,  but  had  quickly  enough 
again,  with  her  getting  out  of  her  own  house  and  her 
walking  across  half  the  town — for  she  had  come  from 
Portland  Place  on  foot — found  breath  still  in  its  lungs. 
It  exhaled  this  breath  in  a  sigh,  faint  and  unheard; 
her  tribute,  while  she  stood  there  before  speaking,  to 
realities  looming  through  the  golden  mist  that  had  al 
ready  begun  to  be  scattered.  The  conditions  facing  her 
had  yielded,  for  the  time,  to  the  golden  mist — had  con 
siderably  melted  away;  but  there  they  were  again, 
definite,  and  it  was  for  the  next  quarter  of  an  hour 
as  if  she  could  have  counted  them  one  by  one  on  her 
fingers.  Sharp  to  her  above  all  was  the  renewed  at 
testation  of  her  father's  comprehensive  acceptances, 
which  she  had  so  long  regarded  as  of  the  same  quality 
with  her  own,  but  which,  so  distinctly  now,  she  should 

32 


THE  PRINCESS 

have  the  complication  of  being  obliged  to  deal  with 
separately.  They  had  not  yet  struck  her  as  absolutely 
extraordinary — which  had  made  for  her  lumping  them 
with  her  own,  since  her  view  of  her  own  had  but  so 
lately  begun  to  change;  though  it  instantly  stood  out 
for  her  that  there  was  really  no  new  judgment  of  them 
she  should  be  able  to  show  without  attracting  in  some 
degree  his  attention,  without  perhaps  exciting  his  sur 
prise  and  making  thereby,  for  the  situation  she  shared 
with  him,  some  difference.  She  was  reminded  and 
warned  by  the  concrete  image ;  and  for  a  minute  Char 
lotte's  face,  immediately  presented  to  her,  affected  her 
as  searching  her  own  to  see  the  reminder  tell.  She 
had  not  less  promptly  kissed  her  stepmother,  and  then 
had  bent  over  her  father,  from  behind,  and  laid  her 
cheek  upon  him ;  little  amenities  tantamount  heretofore 
to  an  easy  change  of  guard — Charlotte's  own  frequent, 
though  always  cheerful,  term  of  comparison  for  this 
process  of  transfer.  Maggie  figured  thus  as  the  re 
lieving  sentry,  and  so  smoothly  did  use  and  custom 
work  for  them  that  her  mate  might  even,  on  this 
occasion,  after  acceptance  of  the  pass-word,  have  de 
parted  without  irrelevant  and,  in  strictness,  unsoldierly 
gossip.  This  was  not,  none  the  less,  what  happened ; 
inasmuch  as  if  our  young  woman  had  been  floated  over 
her  first  impulse  to  break  the  existing  charm  at  a 
stroke,  it  yet  took  her  but  an  instant  to  sound,  at  any 
risk,  the  note  she  had  been  privately  practising.  If  she 
had  practised  it  the  day  before,  at  dinner,  on  Amerigo, 
she  knew  but  the  better  how  to  begin  for  it  with  Mrs. 
Verver,  and  it  immensely  helped  her,  for  that  matter,  to 

VOL.  II.— 3  33 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

be  able  at  once  to  speak  of  the  Prince  as  having  done 
more  to  quicken  than  to  soothe  her  curiosity.  Frankly 
and  gaily  she  had  come  to  ask — to  ask  what,  in  their 
unusually  prolonged  campaign,  the  two  had  achieved. 
She  had  got  out  of  her  husband,  she  admitted,  what 
she  could,  but  husbands  were  never  the  persons  who 
answered  such  questions  ideally.  He  had  only  made 
her  more  curious,  and  she  had  arrived  early,  this  way, 
in  order  to  miss  as  little  as  possible  of  Charlotte's  story. 
"Wives,  papa,"  she  said,  "are  always  much  better 
reporters — though  I  grant,"  she  added  for  Charlotte, 
"that  fathers  are  not  much  better  than  husbands.  He 
never,"  she  smiled,  "tells  me  more  than  a  tenth  of 
what  you  tell  him;  so  I  hope  you  haven't  told  him 
everything  yet,  since  in  that  case  I  shall  probably  have 
lost  the  best  part  of  it."  Maggie  went,  she  went — she 
felt  herself  going;  she  reminded  herself  of  an  actress 
who  had  been  studying  a  part  and  rehearsing  it,  but 
who  suddenly,  on  the  stage,  before  the  footlights,  had 
begun  to  improvise,  to  speak  lines  not  in  the  text.  It 
was  this  very  sense  of  the  stage  and  the  footlights  that 
kept  her  up,  made  her  rise  higher :  just  as  it  was  the 
sense  of  action  that  logically  involved  some  platform — 
action  quite  positively  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  or, 
counting  in  the  previous  afternoon,  for  the  second. 
The  platform  remained  for  three  or  four  days  thus  sen 
sibly  under  her  feet,  and  she  had  all  the  while,  with 
it,  the  inspiration  of  quite  remarkably,  of  quite  hero 
ically  improvising.  Preparation  and  practice  had  come 
but  a  short  way ;  her  part  opened  out,  and  she  invented 
from  moment  to  moment  what  to  say  and  to  do.  She 

34 


THE  PRINCESS 

had  but  one  rule  of  art — to  keep  within  bounds  and 
not  lose  her  head;  certainly  she  might  see  for  a  week 
how  far  that  would  take  her.  She  said  to  herself,  in 
her  excitement,  that  it  was  perfectly  simple:  to  bring 
about  a  difference,  touch  by  touch,  without  letting 
either  of  the  three,  and  least  of  all  her  father,  so  much 
as  suspect  her  hand.  If  they  should  suspect  they 
would  want  a  reason,  and  the  humiliating  truth  was 
that  she  wasn't  ready  with  a  reason — not,  that  is,  with 
what  she  would  have  called  a  reasonable  one.  She 
thought  of  herself,  instinctively,  beautifully,  as  having 
dealt,  all  her  life,  at  her  father's  side  and  by  his  ex 
ample,  only  in  reasonable  reasons ;  and  what  she  would 
really  have  been  most  ashamed  of  would  be  to  produce 
for  him,  in  this  line,  some  inferior  substitute.  Unless 
she  were  in  a  position  to  plead,  definitely,  that  she  was 
jealous  she  should  be  in  no  position  to  plead,  decently, 
that  she  was  dissatisfied.  This  latter  condition  would 
be  a  necessary  implication  of  the  former;  without  the 
former  behind  it  it  would  have  to  fall  to  the  ground. 
So  had  the  case,  wonderfully,  been  arranged  for  her; 
there  was  a  card  she  could  play,  but  there  was  only 
one,  and  to  play  it  would  be  to  end  the  game.  She 
felt  herself — as  at  the  small  square  green  table,  be 
tween  the  tall  old  silver  candlesticks  and  the  neatly 
arranged  counters — her  father's  playmate  and  partner ; 
and  what  it  constantly  came  back  to,  in  her  mind,  was 
that  for  her  to  ask  a  question,  to  raise  a  doubt,  to 
reflect  in  any  degree  on  the  play  of  the  others,  would 
be  to  break  the  charm.  The  charm  she  had  to  call  it, 
since  it  kept  her  companion  so  constantly  engaged, 

35 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

so  perpetually  seated  and  so  contentedly  occupied.  To 
say  anything  at  all  would  be,  in  fine,  to  have  to  say  why 
she  was  jealous;  and  she  could,  in  her  private  hours, 
but  stare  long,  with  suffused  eyes,  at  that  impossibility. 
By  the  end  of  a  week,  the  week  that  had  begun, 
especially,  with  her  morning  hour,  in  Eaton  Square, 
between  her  father  and  his  wife,  her  consciousness  of 
being  beautifully  treated  had  become  again  verily 
greater  than  her  consciousness  of  anything  else;  and 
I  must  add,  moreover,  that  she  at  last  found  herself 
rather  oddly  wondering  what  else,  as  a  consciousness, 
could  have  been  quite  so  overwhelming.  Charlotte's 
response  to  the  experiment  of  being  more  with  her 
ought,  as  she  very  well  knew,  to  have  stamped  the 
experiment  with  the  feeling  of  success;  so  that  if  the 
success  itself  seemed  a  boon  less  substantial  than  the 
original  image  of  it,  it  enjoyed  thereby  a  certain  an 
alogy  with  our  young  woman's  aftertaste  of  Amerigo's 
own  determined  demonstrations.  Maggie  was  to  have 
retained,  for  that  matter,  more  than  one  aftertaste, 
and  if  I  have  spoken  of  the  impressions  fixed  in  her 
as  soon  as  she  had,  so  insidiously,  taken  the  field,  a 
definite  note  must  be  made  of  her  perception,  during 
those  moments,  of  Charlotte's  prompt  uncertainty. 
She  had  shown,  no  doubt — she  couldn't  not  have  shown 
— that  she  had  arrived  with  an  idea;  quite  exactly  as 
she  had  shown  her  husband,  the  night  before,  that  she 
was  awaiting  him  with  a  sentiment.  This  analogy  in 
the  two  situations  was  to  keep  up  for  her  the  remem 
brance  of  a  kinship  of  expression  in  the  two  faces — 
in  respect  to  which  all  she  as  yet  professed  to  herself 

36 


THE  PRINCESS 

was  that  she  had  affected  them,  or  at  any  rate  the 
sensibility  each  of  them  so  admirably  covered,  in  the 
same  way.  To  make  the  comparison  at  all  was,  for 
Maggie,  to  return  to  it  often,  to  brood  upon  it,  to 
extract  from  it  the  last  dregs  of  its  interest — to  play 
with  it,  in  short,  nervously,  vaguely,  incessantly,  as  she 
might  have  played  with  a  medallion  containing  on 
either  side  a  cherished  little  portrait  and  suspended 
round  her  neck  by  a  gold  chain  of  a  firm  fineness  that 
no  effort  would  ever  snap.  The  miniatures  were  back 
to  back,  but  she  saw  them  for  ever  face  to  face,  and 
when  she  looked  from  one  to  the  other  she  found  in 
Charlotte's  eyes  the  gleam  of  the  momentary  "What 
does  she  really  want?"  that  had  come  and  gone  for  her 
in  the  Prince's.  So  again,  she  saw  the  other  light,  the 
light  touched  into  a  glow  both  in  Portland  Place  and 
in  Eaton  Square,  as  soon  as  she  had  betrayed  that  she 
wanted  no  harm — wanted  no  greater  harm  of  Char 
lotte,  that  is,  than  to  take  in  that  she  meant  to  go  out 
with  her.  She  had  been  present  at  that  process  as 
personally  as  she  might  have  been  present  at  some  other 
domestic  incident — the  hanging  of  a  new  picture,  say, 
or  the  fitting  of  the  Principino  with  his  first  little 
trousers. 

She  remained  present,  accordingly,  all  the  week,  so 
charmingly  and  systematically  did  Mrs.  Verver  now 
welcome  her  company.  Charlotte  had  but  wanted  the 
hint,  and  what  was  it  but  the  hint,  after  all,  that,  during 
the  so  subdued  but  so  ineffaceable  passage  in  the  break 
fast-room,  she  had  seen  her  take?  It  had  been  taken 
moreover  not  with  resignation,  not  with  qualifications 

37 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

or  reserves,  however  bland;  it  had  been  taken  with 
avidity,  with  gratitude,  with  a  grace  of  gentleness  that 
supplanted  explanations.  The  very  liberality  of  this 
accommodation  might  indeed  have  appeared  in  the 
event  to  give  its  own  account  of  the  matter — as  if  it 
had  fairly  written  the  Princess  down  as  a  person  of 
variations  and  had  accordingly  conformed  but  to  a 
rule  of  tact  in  accepting  these  caprices  for  law.  The 
caprice  actually  prevailing  happened  to  be  that  the  ad 
vent  of  one  of  the  ladies  anywhere  should,  till  the  fit 
had  changed,  become  the  sign,  unfailingly,  of  the  ad 
vent  of  the  other;  and  it  was  emblazoned,  in  rich 
colour,  on  the  bright  face  of  this  period,  that  Mrs. 
Verver  only  wished  to  know,  on  any  occasion,  what 
was  expected  of  her,  only  held  herself  there  for  in 
structions,  in  order  even  to  better  them  if  possible. 
The  two  young  women,  while  the  passage  lasted,  be 
came  again  very  much  the  companions  of  other  days, 
the  days  of  Charlotte's  prolonged  visits  to  the  admiring 
and  bountiful  Maggie,  the  days  when  equality  of  condi 
tion  for  them  had  been  all  the  result  of  the  latter's 
native  vagueness  about  her  own  advantages.  The 
earlier  elements  flushed  into  life  again,  the  frequency, 
the  intimacy,  the  high  pitch  of  accompanying  expres 
sion — appreciation,  endearment,  confidence;  the  rarer 
charm  produced  in  each  by  this  active  contribution  to 
the  felicity  of  the  other :  all  enhanced,  furthermore — 
enhanced  or  qualified,  who  should  say  which? — by  a 
new  note  of  diplomacy,  almost  of  anxiety,  just  sensible 
on  Charlotte's  part  in  particular ;  of  intensity  of  observ 
ance,  in  the  matter  of  appeal  and  response,  in  the 

38 


THE  PRINCESS 

matter  of  making  sure  the  Princess  might  be  disposed 
or  gratified,  that  resembled  an  attempt  to  play  again, 
with  more  refinement,  at  disparity  of  relation.  Char 
lotte's  attitude  had,  in  short,  its  moments  of  flowering 
into  pretty  excesses  of  civility,  self-effacements  in  the 
presence  of  others,  sudden  little  formalisms  of  sugges 
tion  and  recognition,  that  might  have  represented  her 
sense  of  the  duty  of  not  "losing  sight"  of  a  social  dis 
tinction.  This  impression  came  out  most  for  Maggie 
when,  in  their  easier  intervals,  they  had  only  them 
selves  to  regard,  and  when  her  companion's  inveteracy 
of  never  passing  first,  of  not  sitting  till  she  was  seated, 
of  not  interrupting  till  she  appeared  to  give  leave,  of 
not  forgetting,  too  familiarly,  that  in  addition  to  being 
important  she  was  also  sensitive,  had  the  effect  of 
throwing  over  their  intercourse  a  kind  of  silver  tissue 
of  decorum.  It  hung  there  above  them  like  a  canopy 
of  state,  a  reminder  that  though  the  lady-in-waiting 
was  an  established  favourite,  safe  in  her  position,  a 
little  queen,  however,  good-natured,  was  always  a  little 
queen  and  might,  with  small  warning,  remember  it. 

And  yet  another  of  these  concomitants  of  feverish 
success,  all  the  while,  was  the  perception  that  in  another 
quarter  too  things  were  being  made  easy.  Charlotte's 
alacrity  in  meeting  her  had,  in  one  sense,  operated 
slightly  overmuch  as  an  intervention :  it  had  begun  to 
reabsorb  her  at  the  very  hour  of  her  husband's  showing 
her  that,  to  be  all  there,  as  the  phrase  was,  he  likewise 
only  required — as  one  of  the  other  phrases  was  too — 
the  straight  tip.  She  had  heard  him  talk  about  the 
straight  tip,  in  his  moods  of  amusement  at  English 

39 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

slang,  in  his  remarkable  displays  of  assimilative  power, 
power  worthy  of  better  causes  and  higher  inspirations ; 
and  he  had  taken  it  from  her,  at  need,  in  a  way  that, 
certainly  in  the  first  glow  of  relief,  had  made  her 
brief  interval  seem  large.  Then,  however,  immedi 
ately,  and  even  though  superficially,  there  had  declared 
itself  a  readjustment  of  relations  to  which  she  was, 
once  more,  practically  a  little  sacrificed.  "I  must  do 
everything,"  she  had  said,  "without  letting  papa  see 
what  I  do — at  least  till  it's  done !"  but  she  scarce  knew 
how  she  proposed,  even  for  the  next  few  days,  to  blind 
or  beguile  this  participant  in  her  life.  What  had  in 
fact  promptly  enough  happened,  she  presently  recog 
nised,  was  that  if  her  stepmother  had  beautifully  taken 
possession  of  her,  and  if  she  had  virtually  been  rather 
snatched  again  thereby  from  her  husband's  side,  so, 
on  the  other  hand,  this  had,  with  as  little  delay,  en 
tailed  some  very  charming  assistance  for  her  in  Eaton 
Square.  When  she  went  home  with  Charlotte,  from 
whatever  happy  demonstration,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
world  in  which  they  supposed  themselves  to  live,  that 
there  was  no  smallest  reason  why  their  closer  associa 
tion  shouldn't  be  public  and  acclaimed — at  these  times 
she  regularly  found  that  Amerigo  had  come  either  to 
sit  with  his  father-in-law  in  the  absence  of  the  ladies, 
or  to  make,  on  his  side,  precisely  some  such  display  of 
the  easy  working  of  the  family  life  as  would  represent 
the  equivalent  of  her  excursions  with  Charlotte.  Un 
der  this  particular  impression  it  was  that  everything 
in  Maggie  most  melted  and  went  to  pieces — every 
thing,  that  is,  that  belonged  to  her  disposition  to  chal- 

40 


THE  PRINCESS 

lenge  the  perfection  of  their  common  state.  It  divided 
them  again,  that  was  true,  this  particular  turn  of  the 
tide — cut  them  up  afresh  into  pairs  and  parties;  quite 
as  if  a  sense  for  the  equilibrium  was  what,  between 
them  all,  had  most  power  of  insistence;  quite  as  if 
Amerigo  himself  were  all  the  while,  at  bottom,  equally 
thinking  of  it  and  watching  it.  But,  as  against  that, 
he  was  making  her  father  not  miss  her,  and  he  could 
have  rendered  neither  of  them  a  more  excellent  service. 
He  was  acting  in  short  on  a  cue,  the  cue  given  him 
by  observation ;  it  had  been  enough  for  him  to  see  the 
shade  of  change  in  her  behaviour;  his  instinct  for  rela 
tions,  the  most  exquisite  conceivable,  prompted  him 
immediately  to  meet  and  match  the  difference,  to  play 
somehow  into  its  hands.  That  was  what  it  was,  she 
renewedly  felt,  to  have  married  a  man  who  was,  sub 
limely,  a  gentleman ;  so  that,  in  spite  of  her  not  wanting 
to  translate  all  their  delicacies  into  the  grossness  of 
discussion,  she  yet  found  again  and  again,  in  Portland 
Place,  moments  for  saying :  "If  I  didn't  love  you,  you 
know, for  yourself,!  should  still  love  you  for  him."  He 
looked  at  her,  after  such  speeches,  as  Charlotte  looked, 
in  Eaton  Square,  when  she  called  her  attention  to  his 
benevolence:  through  the  dimness  of  the  almost  mus 
ing  smile  that  took  account  of  her  extravagance,  harm 
less  though  it  might  be,  as  a  tendency  to  reckon  with. 
"But  my  poor  child,"  Charlotte  might  under  this  pres 
sure  have  been  on  the  point  of  replying,  "that's  the 
way  nice  people  are,  all  round — so  that  why  should  one 
be  surprised  about  it?  We're  all  nice  together — as  why 
shouldn't  we  be  ?  If  we  hadn't  been  we  wouldn't  have 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

gone  far — and  I  consider  that  we've  gone  very  far  in 
deed.  Why  should  you  'take  on'  as  if  you  weren't  a 
perfect  dear  yourself,  capable  of  all  the  sweetest 
things? — as  if  you  hadn't  in  fact  grown  up  in  an  at 
mosphere,  the  atmosphere  of  all  the  good  things  that  I 
recognised,  even  of  old,  as  soon  as  I  came  near  you, 
and  that  you've  allowed  me  now,  between  you,  to  make 
so  blessedly  my  own."  Mrs.  Verver  might  in  fact 
have  but  just  failed  to  make  another  point,  a  point 
charmingly  natural  to  her  as  a  grateful  and  irreproach 
able  wife.  "It  isn't  a  bit  wonderful,  I  may  also  remind 
you,  that  your  husband  should  find,  when  opportunity 
permits,  worse  things  to  do  than  to  go  about  with 
mine.  I  happen,  love,  to  appreciate  my  husband — I 
happen  perfectly  to  understand  that  his  acquaintance 
should  be  cultivated  and  his  company  enjoyed." 

Some  such  happily-provoked  remarks  as  these,  from 
Charlotte,  at  the  other  house,  had  been  in  the  air,  but 
we  have  seen  how  there  was  also  in  the  air,  for  our 
young  woman,  as  an  emanation  from  the  same  source, 
a  distilled  difference  of  which  the  very  principle  was 
to  keep  down  objections  and  retorts.  That  impression 
came  back — it  had  its  hours  of  doing  so;  and  it  may 
interest  us  on  the  ground  of  its  having  prompted  in 
Maggie  a  final  reflection,  a  reflection  out  of  the  heart 
of  which  a  light  flashed  for  her  like  a  great  flower 
grown  in  a  night.  As  soon  as  this  light  had  spread  a 
little  it  produced  in  some  quarters  a  surprising  dis 
tinctness,  made  her  of  a  sudden  ask  herself  why  there 
should  have  been  even  for  three  days  the  least  ob 
scurity.  The  perfection  of  her  success,  decidedly,  was 

42 


THE  PRINCESS 

like  some  strange  shore  to  which  she  had  been  noise 
lessly  ferried  and  where,  with  a  start,  she  found  herself 
quaking  at  the  thought  that  the  boat  might  have  put 
off  again  and  left  her.  The  word  for  it,  the  word  that 
flashed  the  light,  was  that  they  were  treating  her,  that 
they  were  proceeding  with  her — and,  for  that  matter, 
with  her  father — by  a  plan  that  was  the  exact  counter 
part  of  her  own.  It  was  not  from  her  that  they  took 
their  cue,  but — and  this  was  what  in  particular  made 
her  sit  up — from  each  other;  and  with  a  depth  of 
unanimity,  an  exact  coincidence  of  inspiration  that, 
when  once  her  attention  had  begun  to  fix  it,  struck  her 
as  staring  out  at  her  in  recovered  identities  of  be 
haviour,  expression  and  tone.  They  had  a  view  of  her 
situation,  and  of  the  possible  forms  her  own  con 
sciousness  of  it  might  take — a  view  determined  by 
the  change  of  attitude  they  had  had,  ever  so  subtly, 
to  recognise  in  her  on  their  return  from  Matcham. 
They  had  had  to  read  into  this  small  and  all-but-sup 
pressed  variation  a  mute  comment — on  they  didn't 
quite  know  what ;  and  it  now  arched  over  the  Princess's 
head  like  a  vault  of  bold  span  that  important  com 
munication  between  them  on  the  subject  couldn't  have 
failed  of  being  immediate.  This  new  perception 
bristled  for  her,  as  we  have  said,  with  odd  intimations, 
but  questions  unanswered  played  in  and  out  of  it  as 
well — the  question,  for  instance,  of  why  such  prompti 
tude  of  harmony  should  have  been  important.  Ah, 
when  she  began  to  recover,  piece  by  piece,  the  process 
became  lively ;  she  might  have  been  picking  small  shin 
ing  diamonds  out  of  the  sweepings  of  her  ordered 

43 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

house.  She  bent,  in  this  pursuit,  over  her  dust-bin; 
she  challenged  to  the  last  grain  the  refuse  of  her  inno 
cent  economy.  Then  it  was  that  the  dismissed  vision 
of  Amerigo,  that  evening,  in  arrest  at  the  door  of  her 
salottino  while  her  eyes,  from  her  placed  chair,  took 
him  in — then  it  was  that  this  immense  little  memory 
gave  out  its  full  power.  Since  the  question  was  of 
doors,  she  had  afterwards,  she  now  saw,  shut  it  out; 
she  had  responsibly  shut  in,  as  we  have  understood, 
shut  in  there  with  her  sentient  self,  only  the  fact  of 
his  reappearance  and  the  plenitude  of  his  presence. 
These  things  had  been  testimony,  after  all,  to  super 
sede  any  other,  for  on  the  spot,  even  while  she  looked, 
the  warmly-washing  wave  had  travelled  far  up  the 
strand.  She  had  subsequently  lived,  for  hours  she 
couldn't  count,  under  the  dizzying,  smothering  welter 
— positively  in  submarine  depths  where  everything 
came  to  her  through  walls  of  emerald  and  mother-of- 
pearl  ;  though  indeed  she  had  got  her  head  above  them, 
for  breath,  when  face  to  face  with  Charlotte  again,  on 
the  morrow,  in  Eaton  Square.  Meanwhile,  none  the 
less,  as  was  so  apparent,  the  prior,  the  prime  impres 
sion  had  remained,  in  the  manner  of  a  spying  servant, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  barred  threshold;  a  witness 
availing  himself,  in  time,  of  the  lightest  pretext  to 
re-enter.  It  was  as  if  he  had  found  this  pretext  in 
her  observed  necessity  of  comparing — comparing  the 
obvious  common  elements  in  her  husband's  and  her 
stepmother's  ways  of  now  "taking"  her.  With  or 
without  her  witness,  at  any  rate,  she  was  led  by  com 
parison  to  a  sense  of  the  quantity  of  earnest  intention 

44 


THE  PRINCESS 

operating,  and  operating  so  harmoniously,  between  her 
companions;  and  it  was  in  the  mitigated  midnight  of 
these  approximations  that  she  had  •  made  out  the 
promise  of  her  dawn. 

It  was  a  worked-out  scheme  for  their  not  wounding 
her,  for  their  behaving  to  her  quite  nobly;  to  which 
each  had,  in  some  winning  way,  induced  the  other  to 
contribute,  and  which  therefore,  so  far  as  that  went, 
proved  that  she  had  become  with  them  a  subject  of  in 
timate  study.  Quickly,  quickly,  on  a  certain  alarm 
taken,  eagerly  and  anxiously,  before  they  should,  with 
out  knowing  it,  wound  her,  they  had  signalled  from 
house  to  house  their  clever  idea,  the  idea  by  which,  for 
all  these  days,  her  own  idea  had  been  profiting.  They 
had  built  her  in  with  their  purpose — which  was  why, 
above  her,  a  vault  seemed  more  heavily  to  arch;  so 
that  she  sat  there,  in  the  solid  chamber  of  her  help 
lessness,  as  in  a  bath  of  benevolence  artfully  prepared 
for  her,  over  the  brim  of  which  she  could  but  just 
manage  to  see  by  stretching  her  neck.  Baths  of  be 
nevolence  were  very  well  jut,  at  least,  unless  one  were 
a  patient  of  some  sort,  a  nervous  eccentric  or  a  lost 
child,  one  was  usually  not  so  immersed  save  by  one's 
request.  It  wasn't  in  the  least  what  she  had  re 
quested.  She  had  flapped  her  little  wings  as  a  sym 
bol  of  desired  flight,  not  merely  as  a  plea  for  a  more 
gilded  cage  and  an  extra  allowance  of  lumps  of  sugar. 
Above  all  she  hadn't  complained,  not  by  the  quaver 
of  a  syllable — so  what  wound  in  particular  had  she 
shown  her  fear  of  receiving?  What  wound  had  she 
received — as  to  which  she  had  exchanged  the  least 

45 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

word  with  them?  If  she  had  ever  whined  or  moped 
they  might  have  had  some  reason;  but  she  would  be 
hanged — she  conversed  with  herself  in  strong  lan 
guage — if  she  had  been,  from  beginning  to  end, 
anything  but  pliable  and  mild.  It  all  came  back,  in 
consequence,  to  some  required  process  of  their  own, 
a  process  operating,  quite  positively,  as  a  precaution 
and  a  policy.  They  had  got  her  into  the  bath  and, 
for  consistency  with  themselves  —  which  was  with 
each  other — must  keep  her  there.  In  that  condition 
she  wouldn't  interfere  with  the  policy,  which  was 
established,  which  was  arranged.  Her  thought,  over 
this,  arrived  at  a  great  intensity — had  indeed  its 
pauses  and  timidities,  but  always  to  take  afterwards  a 
further  and  lighter  spring.  The  ground  was  well-nigh 
covered  by  the  time  she  had  made  out  her  husband  and 
his  colleague  as  directly  interested  in  preventing  her 
freedom  of  movement.  Policy  or  no  policy,  it  was 
they  themselves  who  were  arranged.  She  must  be  kept 
in  position  so  as  not  to  cfoarrange  them.  It  fitted  im 
mensely  together,  the  whole  thing,  as  soon  as  she  could 
give  them  a  motive;  for,  strangely  as  it  had  by  this 
time  begun  to  appear  to  herself,  she  had  hitherto  not 
imagined  them  sustained  by  an  ideal  distinguishably 
different  from  her  own.  Of  course  they  were  arranged 
— all  four  arranged;  but  what  had  the  basis  of  their 
life  been,  precisely,  but  that  they  were  arranged  to 
gether?  Ah!  Amerigo  and  Charlotte  were  arranged 
together,  but  she — to  confine  the  matter  only  to  her 
self — was  arranged  apart.  It  rushed  over  her,  the  full 
sense  of  all  this,  with  quite  another  rush  from  that  of 

46 


THE  PRINCESS 

the  breaking  wave  of  ten  days  before ;  and  as  her  father 
himself  seemed  not  to  meet  the  vaguely-clutching  hand 
with  which,  during  the  first  shock  of  complete  percep 
tion,  she  tried  to  steady  herself,  she  felt  very  much 
alone. 


47 


XXVII 

THERE  had  been,  from  far  back — that  is  from  the 
Christmas  time  on — a  plan  that  the  parent  and  the 
child  should  "do  something  lovely"  together,  and  they, 
had  recurred  to  it  on  occasion,  nursed  it  and  brought  it 
up  theoretically,  though  without  as  yet  quite  allowing 
it  to  put  its  feet  to  the  ground.  The  most  it  had  done 
was  to  try  a  few  steps  on  the  drawing-room  carpet,  with 
much  attendance,  on  either  side,  much  holding  up  and 
guarding,  much  anticipation,  in  fine,  of  awkwardness 
or  accident.  Their  companions,  by  the  same  token, 
had  constantly  assisted  at  the  performance,  following 
the  experiment  with  sympathy  and  gaiety,  and  never 
so  full  of  applause,  Maggie  now  made  out  for  herself, 
as  when  the  infant  project  had  kicked  its  little  legs 
most  wildly — kicked  them,  for  all  the  world,  across  the 
Channel  and  half  the  Continent,  kicked  them  over  the 
Pyrenees  and  innocently  crowed  out  some  rich  Spanish 
name.  She  asked  herself  at  present  if  it  had  been  a 
"real"  belief  that  they  were  but  wanting,  for  some 
such  adventure,  to  snatch  their  moment ;  whether  either 
had  at  any  instant  seen  it  as  workable,  save  in  the 
form  of  a  toy  to  dangle  before  the  other,  that  they 
should  take  flight,  without  wife  or  husband,  for  one 
more  look,  "before  they  died,"  at  the  Madrid  pictures, 

48 


THE  PRINCESS 

as  well  as  for  a  drop  of  further  weak  delay  in  re 
spect  to  three  or  four  possible  prizes,  privately 
offered,  rarities  of  the  first  water,  responsibly  re 
ported  on  and  profusely  photographed,  still  patiently 
awaiting  their  noiseless  arrival  in  retreats  to  which 
the  clue  had  not  otherwise  been  given  away.  The 
vision  dallied  with  during  the  duskier  days  in 
Eaton  Square  had  stretched  to  the  span  of  three  or 
four  weeks  of  springtime  for  the  total  adventure, 
three  or  four  weeks  in  the  very  spirit,  after  all,  of 
their  regular  life,  as  their  regular  life  had  been 
persisting;  full  of  shared  mornings,  afternoons,  even 
ings,  walks,  drives,  "looks-in,"  at  old  places,  on  vague 
chances;  full  also,  in  especial,  of  that  purchased  social 
ease,  the  sense  of  the  comfort  and  credit  of  their  house, 
which  had  essentially  the  perfection  of  something  paid 
for,  but  which  "came,"  on  the  whole,  so  cheap  that 
it  might  have  been  felt  as  costing — as  costing  the 
parent  and  child — nothing.  It  was  for  Maggie  to 
wonder,  at  present,  if  she  had  been  sincere  about  their 
going,  to  ask  herself  whether  she  would  have  stuck 
to  their  plan  even  if  nothing  had  happened. 

Her  view  of  the  impossibility  of  sticking  to  it  now 
may  give  us  the  measure  of  her  sense  that  everything 
had  happened.  A  difference  had  been  made  in  her 
relation  to  each  of  her  companions,  and  what  it  com 
pelled  her  to  say  to  herself  was  that  to  behave  as 
she  might  have  behaved  before  would  be  to  act,  for 
Amerigo  and  Charlotte,  with  the  highest  hypocrisy. 
She  saw  in  these  days  that  a  journey  abroad  with  her 
father  would,  more  than  anything  else,  have  amounted, 

VOL.  ii.— 4  49 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

on  his  part  and  her  own,  to  a  last  expression  of  an 
ecstasy  of  confidence,  and  that  the  charm  of  the  idea, 
in  fact,  had  been  in  some  such  sublimity.  Day  after 
day  she  put  off  the  moment  of  "speaking,"  as  she  in 
wardly  and  very  comprehensively,  called  it — speaking, 
that  is,  to  her  father;  and  all  the  more  that  she  was 
ridden  by  a  strange  suspense  as  to  his  himself  breaking 
silence.  She  gave  him  time,  gave  him,  during  several 
days,  that  morning,  that  noon,  that  night,  and  the  next 
and  the  next  and  the  next;  even  made  up  her  mind 
that  if  he  stood  off  longer  it  would  be  proof  conclusive 
that  he  too  wasn't  at  peace.  They  would  then  have 
been,  all  successfully,  throwing  dust  in  each  other's 
eyes ;  and  it  would  be  at  last  as  if  they  must  turn  away 
their  faces,  since  the  silver  mist  that  protected  them 
had  begun  to  grow  sensibly  thin.  Finally,  at  the  end 
of  April,  she  decided  that  if  he  should  say  nothing  for 
another  period  of  twenty-four  hours  she  must  take  it 
as  showing  that  they  were,  in  her  private  phraseology, 
lost;  so  little  possible  sincerity  could  there  be  in  pre 
tending  to  care  for  a  journey  to  Spain  at  the  approach 
of  a  summer  that  already  promised  to  be  hot.  Such 
a  proposal,  on  his  lips,  such  an  extravagance  of  op 
timism,  would  be  his  way  of  being  consistent — for 
that  he  didn't  really  want  to  move,  or  to  move  further, 
at  the  worst,  than  back  to  Fawns  again,  could  only 
signify  that  he  wasn't,  at  heart,  contented.  What  he 
wanted,  at  any  rate,  and  what  he  didn't  want  were, 
in  the  event,  put  to  the  proof  for  Maggie  just  in  time 
to  give  her  a  fresh  wind.  She  had  been  dining,  with 
her  husband,  in  Eaton  Square,  on  the  occasion  of  hos- 

50 


THE   PRINCESS 

pitality  offered  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Verver  to  Lord  and 
Lady  Castledean.  The  propriety  of  some  demonstra 
tion  of  this  sort  had  been  for  many  days  before  our 
group,  the  question  reduced  to  the  mere  issue  of  which 
of  the  two  houses  should  first  take  the  field.  The  issue 
had  been  easily  settled — in  the  manner  of  every  issue 
referred  in  any  degree  to  Amerigo  and  Charlotte :  the 
initiative  obviously  belonged  to  Mrs.  Verver,  who  had 
gone  to  Matcham  while  Maggie  had  stayed  away, 
and  the  evening  in  Eaton  Square  might  have  passed 
for  a  demonstration  all  the  more  personal  that  the 
dinner  had  been  planned  on  "intimate"  lines.  Six 
other  guests  only,  in  addition  to  the  host  and  the 
hostess  of  Matcham,  made  up  the  company,  and  each 
of  these  persons  had  for  Maggie  the  interest  of  an 
attested  connection  with  the  Easter  revels  at  that  vis 
ionary  house.  Their  common  memory  of  an  occasion 
that  had  clearly  left  behind  it  an  ineffaceable  charm 
— this  air  of  beatific  reference,  less  subdued  in  the 
others  than  in  Amerigo  and  Charlotte,  lent  them, 
together,  an  inscrutable  comradeship  against  which 
the  young  woman's  imagination  broke  in  a  small 
vain  wave. 

It  wasn't  that  she  wished  she  had  been  of  the  re 
membered  party  and  possessed  herself  of  its  secrets; 
for  she  didn't  care  about  its  secrets — she  could  concern 
herself  at  present,  absolutely,  with  no  secret  but  her 
own.  What  occurred  was  simply  that  she  became 
aware,  at  a  stroke,  of  the  quantity  of  further  nourish 
ment  required  by  her  own,  and  of  the  amount  of  it 
she  might  somehow  extract  from  these  people ;  where- 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

by  she  rose,  of  a  sudden,  to  the  desire  to  possess  and 
use  them,  even  to  the  extent  of  braving,  of  fairly  defy 
ing,  of  directly  exploiting,  of  possibly  quite  enjoying, 
under  cover  of  an  evil  duplicity,  the  felt  element  of 
curiosity  with  which  they  regarded  her.  Once  she 
was  conscious  of  the  flitting  wing  of  this  last  im 
pression — the  perception,  irresistible,  that  she  was 
something  for  their  queer  experience,  just  as  they  were 
something  for  hers — there  was  no  limit  to  her  con 
ceived  design  of  not  letting  them  escape.  She  went 
and  went,  again,  to-night,  after  her  start  was  taken; 
went,  positively,  as  she  had  felt  herself  going,  three 
weeks  before,  on  the  morning  w7hen  the  vision  of  her 
father  and  his  wife  awaiting  her  together  in  the  break 
fast-room  had  been  so  determinant.  In  this  other  scene 
it  was  Lady  Castledean  who  was  determinant,  who 
kindled  the  light,  or  at  all  events  the  heat,  and  who 
acted  on  the  nerves ;  Lady  Castledean  whom  she  knew 
she,  so  oddly,  didn't  like,  in  spite  of  reasons  upon 
reasons,  the  biggest  diamonds  on  the  yellowest  hair, 
the  longest  lashes  on  the  prettiest,  falsest  eyes,  the 
oldest  lace  on  the  most  violet  velvet,  the  rightest  man 
ner  on  the  wrongest  assumption.  Her  ladyship's 
assumption  was  that  she  kept,  at  every  moment  of  her 
life,  every  advantage — it  made  her  beautifully  soft, 
very  nearly  generous;  so  she  didn't  distinguish  the 
little  protuberant  eyes  of  smaller  social  insects,  often 
endowed  with  such  a  range,  from  the  other  decorative 
spots  on  their  bodies  and  wings.  Maggie  had  liked,  in 
London,  and  in  the  world  at  large,  so  many  more 
people  than  she  had  thought  it  right  to  fear,  right  even 

52 


THE   PRINCESS 

to  so  much  as  judge,  that  it  positively  quickened  her 
fever  to  have  to  recognise,  in  this  case,  such  a  lapse  of 
all  the  sequences.  It  was  only  that  a  charming  clever 
woman  wondered  about  her — that  is  wondered  about 
her  as  Amerigo's  wife,  and  wondered,  moreover,  with 
the  intention  of  kindness  and  the  spontaneity,  almost, 
of  surprise. 

The  point  of  view — that  one — was  what  she  read  in 
their  free  contemplation,  in  that  of  the  whole  eight; 
there  was  something  in  Amerigo  to  be  explained,  and 
she  was  passed  about,  all  tenderly  and  expertly,  like 
a  dressed  doll  held,  in  the  right  manner,  by  its  firmly- 
stuffed  middle,  for  the  account  she  could  give.  She 
might  have  been  made  to  give  it  by  pressure  of  her 
stomach;  she  might  have  been  expected  to  articulate, 
with  a  rare  imitation  of  nature,  "Oh  yes,  I'm  here  all 
the  while;  I'm  also  in  my  way  a  solid  little  fact  and  I 
cost  originally  a  great  deal  of  money :  cost,  that  is, 
my  father,  for  my  outfit,  and  let  in  my  husband  for 
an  amount  of  pains — toward  my  training — that  money 
would  scarce  represent."  Well,  she  would  meet  them 
in  some  such  way,  and  she  translated  her  idea  into  ac 
tion,  after  dinner,  before  they  dispersed,  by  engaging 
them  all,  unconventionally,  almost  violently,  to  dine 
with  her  in  Portland  Place,  just  as  they  were,  if  they 
didn't  mind  the  same  party,  which  was  the  party  she 
wanted.  Oh  she  was  going,  she  was  going — she  could 
feel  it  afresh ;  it  was  a  good  deal  as  if  she  had  sneezed 
ten  times  or  had  suddenly  burst  into  a  comic  song. 
There  were  breaks  in  the  connection,  as  there  would  be 
hitches  in  the  process ;  she  didn't  wholly  see,  yet,  what 

53 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

they  would  do  for  her,  nor  quite  how,  herself,  she 
should  handle  them ;  but  she  was  dancing  up  and  down, 
beneath  her  propriety,  with  the  thought  that  she  had 
at  least  begun  something — she  so  fairly  liked  to  feel 
that  she  was  a  point  for  convergence  of  wonder.  It 
wasn't  after  all,  either,  that  their  wonder  so  much 
signified — that  of  the  cornered  six,  whom  it  glimmered 
before  her  that  she  might  still  live  to  drive  about  like 
a  flock  of  sheep :  the  intensity  of  her  consciousness,  its 
sharpest  savour,  was  in  the  theory  of  her  having  di 
verted,  having,  as  they  said,  captured,  the  attention  of 
Amerigo  and  Charlotte,  at  neither  of  whom,  all  the 
while,  did  she  so  much  as  once  look.  She  had  pitched 
them  in  with  the  six,  for  that  matter,  so  far  as  they 
themselves  were  concerned;  they  had  dropped,  for  the 
succession  of  minutes,  out  of  contact  with  their  func 
tion — had,  in  short,  startled  and  impressed,  abandoned 
their  post.  "They're  paralysed,  they're  paralysed!" 
she  commented,  deep  within;  so  much  it  helped  her 
own  apprehension  to  hang  together  that  they  should 
suddenly  lose  their  bearings. 

Her  grasp  of  appearances  was  thus  out  of  propor 
tion  to  her  view  of  causes ;  but  it  came  to  her  then  and 
there  that  if  she  could  only  get  the  facts  of  appearance 
straight,  only  jam  them  down  into  their  place,  the 
reasons  lurking  behind  them,  kept  uncertain,  for  the 
eyes,  by  their  wavering  and  shifting,  wouldn't  perhaps 
be  able  to  help  showing.  It  wasn't  of  course  that  the 
Prince  and  Mrs.  Verver  marvelled  to  see  her  civil 
to  their  friends;  it  was  rather,  precisely,  that  civil  was 
just  what  she  wasn't:  she  had  so  departed  from  any 

54 


THE   PRINCESS 

such  custom  of  delicate  approach — approach  by  the 
permitted  note,  the  suggested  "if,"  the  accepted  vague 
ness — as  would  enable  the  people  in  question  to  put 
her  off  if  they  wished.  And  the  profit  of  her  plan,  the 
effect  of  the  violence  she  was  willing  to  let  it  go  for, 
was  exactly  in  their  being  the  people  in  question, 
people  she  had  seemed  to  be  rather  shy  of  before 
and  for  whom  she  suddenly  opened  her  mouth  so 
wide.  Later  on,  we  may  add,  with  the  ground  soon 
covered  by  her  agitated  but  resolute  step,  it  was  to 
cease  to  matter  what  people  they  were  or  weren't ;  but 
meanwhile  the  particular  sense  of  them  that  she  had 
taken  home  to-night  had  done  her  the  service  of 
seeming  to  break  the  ice  where  that  formation  was 
thickest.  Still  more  unexpectedly,  the  service  might 
have  been  the  same  for  her  father;  inasmuch  as,  im 
mediately,  when  everyone  had  gone,  he  did  exactly 
what  she  had  been  waiting  for  and  despairing  of — 
and  did  it,  as  he  did  everything,  with  a  simplicity  that 
left  any  purpose  of  sounding  him  deeper,  of  draw 
ing  him  out  further,  of  going,  in  his  own  frequent 
phrase,  "behind"  what  he  said,  nothing  whatever  to 
do.  He  brought  it  out  straight,  made  it  bravely  and 
beautifully  irrelevant,  save  for  the  plea  of  what  they 
should  lose  by  breaking  the  charm :  "I  guess  we  won't 
go  down  there  after  all,  will  we,  Mag? — just  when  it's 
getting  so  pleasant  here."  That  was  all,  with  nothing 
to  lead  up  to  it;  but  it  was  done  for  her  at  a  stroke, 
and  done,  not  less,  more  rather,  for  Amerigo  and  Char 
lotte,  on  whom  the  immediate  effect,  as  she  secretly, 
as  she  almost  breathlessly  measured  it,  was  prodigious. 

55 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

Everything  now  so  fitted  for  her  to  everything  else 
that  she  could  feel  the  effect  as  prodigious  even  while 
sticking  to  her  policy  of  giving  the  pair  no  look. 
There  were  thus  some  five  wonderful  minutes  during 
which  they  loomed,  to  her  sightless  eyes,  on  either 
side  of  her,  larger  than  they  had  ever  loomed  before, 
larger  than  life,  larger  than  thought,  larger  than  any 
danger  or  any  safety.  There  was  thus  a  space  of 
time,  in  fine,  fairly  vertiginous  for  her,  during  which 
she  took  no  more  account  of  them  than  if  they  were 
not  in  the  room. 

She  had  never,  never  treated  them  in  any  such  way 
— not  even  just  now,  when  she  had  plied  her  art  upon 
the  Matcham  band ;  her  present  manner  was  an  intenser 
exclusion,  and  the  air  was  charged  with  their  silence 
while  she  talked  with  her  other  companion  as  if  she 
had  nothing  but  him  to  consider.  He  had  given  her 
the  note  amazingly,  by  his  allusion  to  the  pleasant 
ness — that  of  such  an  occasion  as  his  successful  dinner 
— which  might  figure  as  their  bribe  for  renouncing; 
so  that  it  was  all  as  if  they  were  speaking  selfishly, 
counting  on  a  repetition  of  just  such  extensions  of 
experience.  Maggie  achieved  accordingly  an  act  of 
unprecedented  energy,  threw  herself  into  her  father's 
presence  as  by  the  absolute  consistency  with  which 
she  held  his  eyes;  saying  to  herself,  at  the  same  time 
that  she  smiled  and  talked  and  inaugurated  her  system, 
"What  does  he  mean  by  it?  That's  the  question — 
what  does  he  mean?"  but  studying  again  all  the  signs 
in  him  that  recent  anxiety  had  made  familiar  and  count 
ing  the  stricken  minutes  on  the  part  of  the  others.  It 

56 


THE   PRINCESS 

was  in  their  silence  that  the  others  loomed,  as  she  felt ; 
she  had  had  no  measure,  she  afterwards  knew,  of  this 
duration,  but  it  drew  out  and  out — really  to  what 
would  have  been  called  in  simpler  conditions  awk 
wardness — as  if  she  herself  were  stretching  the  cord. 
Ten  minutes  later,  however,  in  the  homeward  car 
riage,  to  which  her  husband,  cutting  delay  short, 
had  proceeded  at  the  first  announcement,  ten  min 
utes  later  she  was  to  stretch  it  almost  to  breaking. 
The  Prince  had  permitted  her  to  linger  much 
less,  before  his  move  to  the  door,  than  they  usually 
lingered  at  the  gossiping  close  of  such  evenings; 
which  she,  all  responsive,  took  for  a  sign  of  his  im 
patience  to  modify  for  her  the  odd  effect  of  his  not 
having,  and  of  Charlotte's  not  having,  instantly 
acclaimed  the  issue  of  the  question  debated,  or  more 
exactly,  settled,  before  them.  He  had  had  time 
to  become  aware  of  this  possible  impression  in  her, 
and  his  virtually  urging  her  into  the  carriage  was 
connected  with  his  feeling  that  he  must  take  action  on 
the  new  ground.  A  certain  ambiguity  in  her  would 
absolutely  have  tormented  him;  but  he  had  already 
found  something  to  soothe  and  correct — as  to  which 
she  had,  on  her  side,  a  shrewd  notion  of  what  it  would 
be.  She  was  herself,  for  that  matter,  prepared,  and 
she  was,  of  a  truth,  as  she  took  her  seat  in  the 
brougham,  amazed  at  her  preparation.  It  allowed  her 
scarce  an  interval ;  she  brought  it  straight  out. 

"I  was  certain  that  was  what  father  would  say  if 
I  should  leave  him  alone.  I  have  been  leaving  him 
alone,  and  you  see  the  effect.  He  hates  now  to  move 

57 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

— he  likes  too  much  to  be  with  us.  But  if  you  see  the 
effect" — she  felt  herself  magnificently  keeping  it  up — 
"perhaps  you  don't  see  the  cause.  The  cause,  my 
dear,  is  too  lovely." 

Her  husband,  on  taking  his  place  beside  her,  had, 
during  a  minute  or  two,  for  her  watching  sense, 
neither  said  nor  done  anything;  he  had  been,  for  that 
sense,  as  if  thinking,  waiting,  deciding:  yet  it  was 
still  before  he  spoke  that  he,  as  she  felt  it  to  be,  defi 
nitely  acted.  He  put  his  arm  round  her  and  drew  her 
close — indulged  in  the  demonstration,  the  long,  firm 
embrace  by  his  single  arm,  the  infinite  pressure  of  her 
whole  person  to  his  own,  that  such  opportunities  had 
so  often  suggested  and  prescribed.  Held,  accordingly, 
and,  as  she  could  but  too  intimately  feel,  exquisitely 
solicited,  she  had  said  the  thing  she  was  intending  and 
desiring  to  say,  and  as  to  which  she  felt,  even  more 
than  she  felt  anything  else,  that  whatever  he  might 
do  she  mustn't  be  irresponsible.  Yes,  she  was  in  his 
exerted  grasp,  and  she  knew  what  that  was;  but  she 
was  at  the  same  time  in  the  grasp  of  her  conceived 
responsibility,  and  the  extraordinary  thing  was  that, 
of  the  two  intensities,  the  second  was  presently  to  be 
come  the  sharper.  He  took  his  time  for  it  meanwhile, 
but  he  met  her  speech  after  a  fashion.  "The  cause  of 
your  father's  deciding  not  to  go?" 

"Yes,  and  of  my  having  wanted  to  let  it  act  for 
him  quietly — I  mean  without  my  insistence."  She  had, 
in  her  compressed  state,  another  pause,  and  it  made 
her  feel  as  if  she  were  immensely  resisting.  Strange 
enough  was  this  sense  for  her,  and  altogether  new,  the 

58 


THE   PRINCESS 

sense  of  possessing,  by  miraculous  help,  some  ad 
vantage  that,  absolutely  then  and  there,  in  the  car 
riage,  as  they  rolled,  she  might  either  give  up  or  keep. 
Strange,  inexpressibly  strange — so  distinctly  she  saw 
that  if  she  did  give  it  up  she  should  somehow  give  up 
everything  for  ever.  And  what  her  husband's  grasp 
really  meant,  as  her  very  bones  registered,  was  that 
she  should  give  it  up :  it  was  exactly  for  this  that  he 
had  resorted  to  unfailing  magic.  He  knew  how  to 
resort  to  it — he  could  be,  on  occasion,  as  she  had  lately 
more  than  ever  learned,  so  munificent  a  lover:  all  of 
which  was,  precisely,  a  part  of  the  character  she  had 
never  ceased  to  regard  in  him  as  princely,  a  part  of  his 
large  and  beautiful  ease,  his  genius  for  charm,  for  in 
tercourse,  for  expression,  for  life.  She  should  have 
but  to  lay  her  head  back  on  his  shoulder  with  a  cer 
tain  movement  to  make  it  definite  for  him  that  she 
didn't  resist.  To  this,  as  they  went,  every  throb  of 
her  consciousness  prompted  her — every  throb,  that  is, 
but  one,  the  throb  of  her  deeper  need  to  know  where 
she  "really"  was.  By  the  time  she  had  uttered 
the  rest  of  her  idea,  therefore,  she  was  still  keep 
ing  her  head  and  intending  to  keep  it;  though  she 
•was  also  staring  out  of  the  carriage- window  with 
eyes  into  which  the  tears  of  suffered  pain  had  risen, 
indistinguishable,  perhaps,  happily,  in  the  dusk. 
She  was  making  an  effort  that  horribly  hurt  her, 
and,  as  she  couldn't  cry  out,  her  eyes  swam  in 
her  silence.  With  them,  all  the  same,  through  the 
square  opening  beside  her,  through  the  grey  pan 
orama  of  the  London  night,  she  achieved  the  feat 

59 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

of  not  losing  sight  of  what  she  wanted;  and  her 
lips  helped  and  protected  her  by  being  able  to  be  gay. 
"It's  not  to  leave  you,  my  dear — for  that  he'll  give  up 
anything;  just  as  he  would  go  off  anywhere,  I  think, 
you  know,  if  you  would  go  with  him.  I  mean  you  and 
he  alone,"  Maggie  pursued  with  her  gaze  out  of  her 
window. 

For  which  Amerigo's  answer  again  took  him  a  mo 
ment.  "Ah,  the  dear  old  boy!  You  would  like  me  to 
propose  him  something ?" 

"Well,  if  you  think  you  could  bear  it." 

"And  leave,"  the  Prince  asked,  "you  and  Charlotte 
alone?" 

"Why  not?"  Maggie  had  also  to  wait  a  minute, 
but  when  she  spoke  it  came  clear.  "Why  shouldn't 
Charlotte  be  just  one  of  my  reasons — my  not  liking 
to  leave  her  ?  She  has  always  been  so  good,  so  perfect, 
to  me — but  never  so  wonderfully  as  just  now.  We 
have  somehow  been  more  together — thinking,  for  the 
time,  almost  only  of  each  other;  it  has  been  quite  as 
in  old  days."  And  she  proceeded  consummately,  for 
she  felt  it  as  consummate :  "It's  as  if  we  had  been  miss 
ing  each  other,  had  got  a  little  apart — though  going  on 
so  side  by  side.  But  the  good  moments,  if  one  only 
waits  for  them,"  she  hastened  to  add,  "come  round  of 
themselves.  Moreover  you've  seen  for  yourself,  since 
you've  made  it  up  so  to  father;  feeling,  for  yourself, 
in  your  beautiful  way,  every  difference,  every  air  that 
blows;  not  having  to  be  told  or  pushed,  only  being 
perfect  to  live  with,  through  your  habit  of  kindness 
and  your  exquisite  instincts.  But  of  course  you've 

60 


THE   PRINCESS 

seen,  all  the  while,  that  both  he  and  I  have  deeply  felt 
how  you've  managed ;  managed  that  he  hasn't  been  too 
much  alone  and  that  I,  on  my  side,  haven't  appeared 
to — what  you  might  call — neglect  him.  This  is  al 
ways,"  she  continued,  "what  I  can  never  bless  you 
enough  for ;  of  all  the  good  things  you've  done  for  me 
you've  never  done  anything  better."  She  went  on  ex 
plaining  as  for  the  pleasure  of  explaining — even  though 
knowing  he  must  recognise,  as  a  part  of  his  easy  way 
too,  her  description  of  his  large  liberality.  "Your  tak 
ing  the  child  down  yourself,  those  days,  and  your 
coming,  each  time,  to  bring  him  away — nothing  in  the 
world,  nothing  you  could  have  invented,  would  have 
kept  father  more  under  the  charm.  Besides,  you  know 
how  you've  always  suited  him,  and  how  you've  always 
so  beautifully  let  it  seem  to  him  that  he  suits  you. 
Only  it  has  been,  these  last  weeks,  as  if  you  wished — 
just  in  order  to  please  him — to  remind  him  of  it 
afresh.  So  there  it  is,"  she  wound  up;  "it's  your  do 
ing.  You've  produced  your  effect — that  of  his  wanting 
not  to  be,  even  for  a  month  or  two,  where  you're  not. 
He  doesn't  want  to  bother  or  bore  you — that,  I  think, 
you  know,  he  never  has  done;  and  if  you'll  only  give 
me  time  I'll  come  round  again  to  making  it  my  care, 
as  always,  that  he  shan't.  But  he  can't  bear  you  out 
of  his  sight." 

She  had  kept  it  up  and  up,  filling  it  out,  crowding 
it  in;  and  all,  really,  without  difficulty,  for  it  was, 
every  word  of  it,  thanks  to  a  long  evolution  of  feeling, 
what  she  had  been  primed  to  the  brim  with.  She  made 
the  picture,  forced  it  upon  him,  hung  it  before  him; 

61 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

remembering,  happily,  how  he  had  gone  so  far,  one 
day,  supported  by  the  Principino,  as  to  propose  the 
Zoo  in  Eaton  Square,  to  carry  with  him  there,  on  the 
spot,  under  this  pleasant  inspiration,  both  his  elder  and 
his  younger  companion,  with  the  latter  of  whom  he  had 
taken  the  tone  that  they  were  introducing  Granddaddy, 
Granddaddy  nervous  and  rather  funking  it,  to  lions  and 
tigers  more  or  less  at  large.  Touch  by  touch  she  thus 
dropped  into  her  husband's  silence  the  truth  about  his 
good  nature  and  his  good  manners;  and  it  was  this 
demonstration  of  his  virtue,  precisely,  that  added  to  the 
strangeness,  even  for  herself,  of  her  failing  as  yet  to 
yield  to  him.  It  would  be  a  question  but  of  the  most 
trivial  act  of  surrender,  the  vibration  of  a  nerve,  the 
mere  movement  of  a  muscle;  but  the  act  grew  impor 
tant  between  them  just  through  her  doing  perceptibly 
nothing,  nothing  but  talk  in  the  very  tone  that  would 
naturally  have  swept  her  into  tenderness.  She  knew 
more  and  more — every  lapsing  minute  taught  her — 
how  he  might  by  a  single  Tightness  make  her  cease  to 
watch  him;  that  Tightness,  a  million  miles  removed 
from  the  queer  actual,  falling  so  short,  which  would 
consist  of  his  breaking  out  to  her  diviningly,  indul 
gently,  with  the  last  happy  inconsequence.  "Come 
away  with  me,  somewhere,  you — and  then  we  needn't 
think,  we  needn't  even  talk,  of  anything,  of  anyone 
else:"  five  words  like  that  would  answer  her,  would 
break  her  utterly  down.  But  they  were  the  only  ones 
that  would  so  serve.  She  waited  for  them,  and  there 
was  a  supreme  instant  when,  by  the  testimony  of  all 
the  rest  of  him,  she  seemed  to  feel  them  in  his  heart 

62 


THE   PRINCESS 

and  on  his  lips;  only  they  didn't  sound,  and  as  that 
made  her  wait  again  so  it  made  her  more  intensely 
watch.  This  in  turn  showed  her  that  he  too  watched 
and  waited,  and  how  much  he  had  expected  something 
that  he  now  felt  wouldn't  come.  Yes,  it  wouldn't 
come  if  he  didn't  answer  her,  if  he  but  said  the  wrong 
things  instead  of  the  right.  If  he  could  say  the  right 
everything  would  come — it  hung  by  a  hair  that  every 
thing  might  crystallise  for  their  recovered  happiness 
at  his  touch.  This  possibility  glowed  at  her,  however, 
for  fifty  seconds,  only  then  to  turn  cold,  and  as  it  fell 
away  from  her  she  felt  the  chill  of  reality  and  knew 
again,  all  but  pressed  to  his  heart  and  with  his  breath 
upon  her  cheek,  the  slim  rigour  of  her  attitude, 
a  rigour  beyond  that  of  her  natural  being.  They 
had  silences,  at  last,  that  were  almost  crudities  of 
mutual  resistance  —  silences  that  persisted  through 
his  felt  effort  to  treat  her  recurrence  to  the  part 
he  had  lately  played,  to  interpret  all  the  sweetness 
of  her  so  talking  to  him,  as  a  manner  of  making 
love  to  him.  Ah,  it  was  no  such  manner,  heaven 
knew,  for  Maggie;  she  could  make  love,  if  this  had 
been  in  question,  better  than  that!  On  top  of  which 
it  came  to  her  presently  to  say,  keeping  in  with  what 
she  had  already  spoken:  "Except  of  course  that,  for 
the  question  of  going  off  somewhere,  he'd  go  readily, 
quite  delightedly,  with  you.  I  verily  believe  he'd  like 
to  have  you  for  a  while  to  himself." 

"Do  you  mean  he  thinks  of  proposing  it?"  the 
Prince  after  a  moment  sounded. 

"Oh  no — he  doesn't  ask,  as  you  must  so  often  have 

63 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

seen.  But  I  believe  he'd  go  'like  a  shot/  as  you  say, 
if  you  were  to  suggest  it." 

It  had  the  air,  she  knew,  of  a  kind  of  condition 
made,  and  she  had  asked  herself  while  she  spoke  if  it 
wouldn't  cause  his  arm  to  let  her  go.  The  fact  that 
it  didn't  suggested  to  her  that  she  had  made  him,  of  a 
sudden,  still  more  intensely  think,  think  with  such 
concentration  that  he  could  do  but  one  thing  at  once. 
And  it  was  precisely  as  if  the  concentration  had  the 
next  moment  been  proved  in  him.  He  took  a  turn 
inconsistent  with  the  superficial  impression — a  jump 
that  made  light  of  their  approach  to  gravity  and 
represented  for  her  the  need  in  him  to  gain  time. 
That  she  made  out,  was  his  drawback — that  the  warn 
ing  from  her  had  come  to  him,  and  had  come  to 
Charlotte,  after  all,  too  suddenly.  That  they  were 
in  face  of  it  rearranging,  that  they  had  to  rear 
range,  was  all  before  her  again;  yet  to  do  as  they 
would  like  they  must  enjoy  a  snatch,  longer  or  short 
er,  of  recovered  independence.  Amerigo,  for  the  in 
stant,  was  but  doing  as  he  didn't  like,  and  it  was 
as  if  she  were  watching  his  effort  without  disguise. 
"What's  your  father's  idea,  this  year,  then,  about 
Fawns?  Will  he  go  at  Whitsuntide,  and  will  he  then 
stay  on?" 

Maggie  went  through  the  form  of  thought.  "He  will 
really  do,  I  imagine,  as  he  has,  in  so  many  ways,  so 
often  done  before ;  do  whatever  may  seem  most  agree 
able  to  yourself.  And  there's  of  course  always  Char 
lotte  to  be  considered.  Only  their  going  early  to 

64 


THE   PRINCESS 

Fawns,  if  they  do  go,"  she  said,  "needn't  in  the  least 
entail  your  and  my  going." 

"Ah,"  Amerigo  echoed,  "it  needn't  in  the  least 
entail  your  and  my  going?" 

"We  can  do  as  we  like.  What  they  may  do  needn't 
trouble  us,  since  they're  by  good  fortune  perfectly 
happy  together." 

"Oh,"  the  Prince  returned,  "your  father's  never  so 
happy  as  with  you  near  him  to  enjoy  his  being  so." 

"Well,  I  may  enjoy  it,"  said  Maggie,  "but  I'm  not 
the  cause  of  it." 

"You're  the  cause,"  her  husband  declared,  "of  the 
greater  part  of  everything  that's  good  among  us." 
But  she  received  this  tribute  in  silence,  and  the  next 
moment  he  pursued :  "If  Mrs.  Verver  has  arrears  of 
time  with  you  to  make  up,  as  you  say,  she'll  scarcely 
do  it — or  you  scarcely  will — by  our  cutting,  your  and 
my  cutting,  too  loose." 

"I  see  what  you  mean,"  Maggie  mused. 

He  let  her  for  a  little  give  her  attention  to  it;  after 
which,  "Shall  I  just  quite,  of  a  sudden,"  he  asked, 
"propose  him  a  journey?" 

Maggie  hesitated,  but  she  brought  forth  the  fruit  of 
reflection.  "It  would  have  the  merit  that  Charlotte 
then  would  be  with  me — with  me,  I  mean,  so  much 
more.  Also  that  I  shouldn't,  by  choosing  such  a  time 
for  going  away,  seem  unconscious  and  ungrateful, 
seem  not  to  respond,  seem  in  fact  rather  to  wish  to 
shake  her  off.  I  should  respond,  on  the  contrary,  very 
markedly — by  being  here  alone  with  her  for  a  month." 

VOL.  II.— 5  65 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"And  would  you  like  to  be  here  alone  with  her  for 
a  month?" 

"I  could  do  with  it  beautifully.  Or  we  might  even," 
she  said  quite  gaily,  "go  together  down  to  Fawns." 

"You  could  be  so  very  content  without  me?"  the 
Prince  presently  inquired. 

"Yes,  my  own  dear — if  you  could  be  content  for  a 
while  with  father.  That  would  keep  me  up.  I  might, 
for  the  time,"  she  went  on,  "go  to  stay  there  with 
Charlotte;  or,  better  still,  she  might  come  to  Portland 
Place." 

"Oho !"  said  the  Prince  with  cheerful  vagueness. 

"I  should  feel,  you  see,"  she  continued,  "that  the  two 
of  us  were  showing  the  same  sort  of  kindness." 

Amerigo  thought.  "The  two  of  us?  Charlotte 
and  I?" 

Maggie  again  hesitated.    "You  and  I,  darling." 

"I  see,  I  see" — he  promptly  took  it  in.  "And  what 
reason  shall  I  give — give,  I  mean,  your  father?" 

"For  asking  him  to  go  off?  Why,  the  very  simplest 
— if  you  conscientiously  can.  The  desire,"  said  Mag 
gie,  "to  be  agreeable  to  him.  Just  that  only." 

Something  in  this  reply  made  her  husband  again 
reflect.  "  'Conscientiously  ?'  Why  shouldn't  I  con 
scientiously  ?  It  wouldn't,  by  your  own  contention," 
he  developed,  "represent  any  surprise  for  him.  I  must 
strike  him  sufficiently  as,  at  the  worst,  the  last  person 
in  the  world  to  wish  to  do  anything  to  hurt  him." 

Ah,  there  it  was  again,  for  Maggie — the  note  al 
ready  sounded,  the  note  of  the  felt  need  of  not  working 
harm!  Why  this  precautionary  view,  she  asked  her- 

66 


THE  PRINCESS 

self  afresh,  when  her  father  had  complained,  at  the 
very  least,  as  little  as  herself?  With  their  stillness 
together  so  perfect,  what  had  suggested  so,  around 
them,  the  attitude  of  sparing  them?  Her  inner  vision 
fixed  it  once  more,  this  attitude,  saw  it,  in  the  others, 
as  vivid  and  concrete,  extended  it  straight  from  her 
companion  to  Charlotte.  Before  she  was  well  aware, 
accordingly,  she  had  echoed  in  this  intensity  of  thought 
Amerigo's  last  words.  "You're  the  last  person  in  the 
world  to  wish  to  do  anything  to  hurt  him." 

She  heard  herself,  heard  her  tone,  after  she  had 
spoken,  and  heard  it  the  more  that,  for  a  minute  after, 
she  felt  her  husband's  eyes  on  her  face,  very  close,  too 
close  for  her  to  see  him.  He  was  looking  at  her  be 
cause  he  was  struck,  and  looking  hard — though  his 
answer,  when  it  came,  was  straight  enough.  "Why, 
isn't  that  just  what  we  have  been  talking  about — that 
I've  affected  you  as  fairly  studying  his  comfort  and  his 
pleasure?  He  might  show  his  sense  of  it,"  the  Prince 
went  on,  "by  proposing  to  me  an  excursion." 

"And  you  would  go  with  him?"  Maggie  immedi 
ately  asked. 

He  hung  fire  but  an  instant.    "Per  Dio!" 

She  also  had  her  pause,  but  she  broke  it — since 
gaiety  was  in  the  air — with  an  intense  smile.  "You 
can  say  that  safely,  because  the  proposal's  one  that,  of 
his  own  motion,  he  won't  make." 

She  couldn't  have  narrated  afterwards — and  in  fact 
was  at  a  loss  to  tell  herself — by  what  transition,  what 
rather  marked  abruptness  of  change  in  their  personal 
relation,  their  drive  came  to  its  end  with  a  kind  of 

67 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

interval  established,  almost  confessed  to,  between  them. 
She  felt  it  in  the  tone  with  which  he  repeated,  after 
her,  "'Safely' ?" 

"Safely  as  regards  being  thrown  with  him  perhaps 
after  all,  in  such  a  case,  too  long.  He's  a  person  to 
think  you  might  easily  feel  yourself  to  be.  So  it 
won't,"  Maggie  said,  "come  from  father.  He's  too 
modest." 

Their  eyes  continued  to  meet  on  it,  from  corner  to 
corner  of  the  brougham.  "Oh  your  modesty,  between 

you !"  But  he  still  smiled  for  it.  "So  that  unless 

I  insist ?" 

"We  shall  simply  go  on  as  we  are." 

"Well,  we're  going  on  beautifully,"  he  answered — 
though  by  no  means  with  the  effect  it  would  have  had 
if  their  mute  transaction,  that  of  attempted  capture 
and  achieved  escape,  had  not  taken  place.  As  Maggie 
said  nothing,  none  the  less,  to  gainsay  his  remark,  it 
was  open  to  him  to  find  himself  the  next  moment  con 
scious  of  still  another  idea.  "I  wonder  if  it  would 
do.  I  mean  for  me  to  break  in." 

"To  break  in' ?" 

"Between  your  father  and  his  wife.  But  there 
would  be  a  way,"  he  said — "we  can  make  Charlotte 
ask  him."  And  then  as  Maggie  herself  now  wondered, 
echoing  it  again :  "We  can  suggest  to  her  to  suggest 
to  him  that  he  shall  let  me  take  him  off." 

"Oh !"  said  Maggie. 

"Then  if  he  asks  her  why  I  so  suddenly  break  out 
she'll  be  able  to  tell  him  the  reason." 

They  were  stopping,  and  the  footman,  who  had 

68 


THE  PRINCESS 

alighted,  had  rung  at  the  house-door.  "That  you  think 
it  would  be  so  charming?" 

"That  I  think  it  would  be  so  charming.  That  we've 
persuaded  her  will  be  convincing." 

"I  see,"  Maggie  went  on  while  the  footman  came 
back  to  let  them  out.  "I  see,"  she  said  again;  though 
she  felt  a  little  disconcerted.  What  she  really  saw, 
of  a  sudden,  was  that  her  stepmother  might  report 
her  as  above  all  concerned  for  the  proposal,  and  this 
brought  her  back  her  need  that  her  father  shouldn't 
think  her  concerned  in  any  degree  for  anything.  She 
alighted  the  next  instant  with  a  slight  sense  of  defeat ; 
her  husband,  to  let  her  out,  had  passed  before  her, 
and,  a  little  in  advance,  he  awaited  her  on  the  edge  of 
the  low  terrace,  a  step  high,  that  preceded  their  open 
entrance,  on  either  side  of  which  one  of  their  servants 
stood.  The  sense  of  a  life  tremendously  ordered  and 
fixed  rose  before  her,  and  there  was  something  in 
Amerigo's  very  face,  while  his  eyes  again  met  her  own 
through  the  dusky  lamplight,  that  was  like  a  conscious 
reminder  of  it.  He  had  answered  her,  just  before,  dis 
tinctly,  and  it  appeared  to  leave  her  nothing  to  say.  It 
was  almost  as  if,  having  planned  for  the  last  word, 
she  saw  him  himself  enjoying  it.  It  was  almost  as 
if — in  the  strangest  way  in  the  world — he  were  pay 
ing  her  back,  by  the  production  of  a  small  pang,  that 
of  a  new  uneasiness,  for  the  way  she  had  slipped  from 
him  during  their  drive. 


69 


XXVIII 

MAGGIE'S  new  uneasiness  might  have  had  time  to 
drop,  inasmuch  as  she  not  only  was  conscious,  during 
several  days  that  followed,  of  no  fresh  indication  for  it 
to  feed  on,  but  was  even  struck,  in  quite  another  way, 
with  an  augmentation  of  the  symptoms  of  that  differ 
ence  she  had  taken  it  into  her  head  to  work  for.  She 
recognised  by  the  end  of  a  week  that  if  she  had  been 
in  a  manner  caught  up  her  father  had  been  not  less  so 
— with  the  effect  of  her  husband's  and  his  wife's  closing 
in,  together,  round  them,  and  of  their  all  having  sud 
denly  begun,  as  a  party  of  four,  to  lead  a  life  gregari 
ous,  and  from  that  reason  almost  hilarious,  so  far  as 
the  easy  sound  of  it  went,  as  never  before.  It  might 
have  been  an  accident  and  a  mere  coincidence — so  at 
least  she  said  to  herself  at  first;  but  a  dozen  chances 
that  furthered  the  whole  appearance  had  risen  to  the 
surface,  pleasant  pretexts,  oh  certainly  pleasant,  as 
pleasant  as  Amerigo  in  particular  could  make  them, 
for  associated  undertakings,  quite  for  shared  adven 
tures,  for  its  always  turning  out,  amusingly,  that  they 
wanted  to  do  very  much  the  same  thing  at  the  same 
time  and  in  the  same  way.  Funny  all  this  was,  to  some 
extent,  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  the  father  and 
daughter,  for  so  long,  had  expressed  so  few  positive 

70 


THE  PRINCESS 

desires;  yet  it  would  be  sufficiently  natural  that  if 
Amerigo  and  Charlotte  had  at  last  got  a  little  tired  of 
each  other's  company  they  should  find  their  relief  not 
so  much  in  sinking  to  the  rather  low  level  of  their  com 
panions  as  in  wishing  to  pull  the  latter  into  the  train 
in  which  they  so  constantly  moved.  "We're  in  the 
train,"  Maggie  mutely  reflected  after  the  dinner  in 
Eaton  Square  with  Lady  Castledean ;  "we've  suddenly 
waked  up  in  it  and  found  ourselves  rushing  along,  very 
much  as  if  we  had  been  put  in  during  sleep — shoved, 
like  a  pair  of  labelled  boxes,  into  the  van.  And  since 
I  wanted  to  'go'  I'm  certainly  going,"  she  might  have 
added ;  "I'm  moving  without  trouble — they're  doing  it 
all  for  us:  it's  wonderful  how  they  understand  and 
how  perfectly  it  succeeds."  For  that  was  the  thing 
she  had  most  immediately  to  acknowledge:  it  seemed 
as  easy  for  them  to  make  a  quartette  as  it  had  formerly 
so  long  appeared  for  them  to  make  a  pair  of  couples — 
this  latter  being  thus  a  discovery  too  absurdly  belated. 
The  only  point  at  which,  day  after  day,  the  success 
appeared  at  all  qualified  was  represented,  as  might 
have  been  said,  by  her  irresistible  impulse  to  give  her 
father  a  clutch  when  the  train  indulged  in  one  of  its 
occasional  lurches.  Then — there  was  no  denying  it — 
his  eyes  and  her  own  met ;  so  that  they  were  themselves 
doing  active  violence,  as  against  the  others,  to  that 
very  spirit  of  union,  or  at  least  to  that  very  achieve 
ment  of  change,  which  she  had  taken  the  field  to 
invoke. 

The  maximum  of  change  was  reached,  no  doubt, 
the  day  the  Matcham  party  dined  in  Portland  Place; 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

the  day,  really  perhaps,  of  Maggie's  maximum  of 
social  glory,  in  the  sense  of  its  showing  for  her  own 
occasion,  her  very  own,  with  every  one  else  extrava 
gantly  rallying  and  falling  in,  absolutely  conspiring  to 
make  her  its  heroine.  It  was  as  if  her  father  himself, 
always  with  more  initiative  as  a  guest  than  as  a  host, 
had  dabbled  too  in  the  conspiracy ;  and  the  impression 
was  not  diminished  by  the  presence  of  the  Assinghams, 
likewise  very  much  caught-up,  now,  after  something 
of  a  lull,  by  the  side-wind  of  all  the  rest  of  the  motion, 
and  giving  our  young  woman,  so  far  at  least  as  Fanny 
was  concerned,  the  sense  of  some  special  intention  of 
encouragement  and  applause.  Fanny,  who  had  not 
been  present  at  the  other  dinner,  thanks  to  a  preference 
entertained  and  expressed  by  Charlotte,  made  a  splen 
did  show  at  this  one,  in  new  orange-coloured  velvet 
with  multiplied  turquoises,  and  with  a  confidence, 
furthermore,  as  different  as  possible,  her  hostess  in 
ferred,  from  her  too-marked  betrayal  of  a  belittled  state 
at  Matcham.  Maggie  was  not  indifferent  to  her  own 
opportunity  to  redress  this  balance — which  seemed,  for 
the  hour,  part  of  a  general  rectification ;  she  liked  mak 
ing  out  for  herself  that  on  the  high  level  of  Portland 
Place,  a  spot  exempt,  on  all  sorts  of  grounds,  from 
jealous  jurisdictions,  her  friend  could  feel  as  "good" 
as  any  one,  and  could  in  fact  at  moments  almost  appear 
to  take  the  lead  in  recognition  and  celebration,  so  far 
as  the  evening  might  conduce  to  intensify  the  lustre  of 
the  little  Princess.  Mrs.  Assingham  produced  on  her 
the  impression  of  giving  her  constantly  her  cue  for 
this;  and  it  was  in  truth  partly  by  her  help,  intelli- 

72 


THE   PRINCESS 

gently,  quite  gratefully  accepted,  that  the  little  Prin 
cess,  in  Maggie,  was  drawn  out  and  emphasised.  She 
couldn't  definitely  have  said  how  it  happened,  but  she 
felt  herself,  for  the  first  time  in  her  career,  living  up 
to  the  public  and  popular  notion  of  such  a  personage, 
as  it  pressed  upon  her  from  all  round ;  rather  wonder 
ing,  inwardly,  too,  while  she  did  so,  at  that  strange 
mixture  in  things  through  which  the  popular  notion 
could  be  evidenced  for  her  by  such  supposedly  great 
ones  of  the  earth  as  the  Castledeans  and  their  kind. 
Fanny  Assingham  might  really  have  been  there,  at  all 
events,  like  one  of  the  assistants  in  the  ring  at  the  cir 
cus,  to  keep  up  the  pace  of  the  sleek  revolving  animal 
on  whose  back  the  lady  in  short  spangled  skirts  should 
brilliantly  caper  and  posture.  That  was  all,  doubtless  : 
Maggie  had  forgotten,  had  neglected,  had  declined,  to 
be  the  little  Princess  on  anything  like  the  scale  open 
to  her ;  but  now  that  the  collective  hand  had  been  held 
out  to  her  with  such  alacrity,  so  that  she  might  skip 
up  into  the  light,  even,  as  seemed  to  her  modest  mind, 
with  such  a  show  of  pink  stocking  and  such  an  abbre 
viation  of  white  petticoat,  she  could  strike  herself  as 
perceiving,  under  arched  eyebrows,  where  her  mistake 
had  been.  She  had  invited  for  the  later  hours,  after 
her  dinner,  a  fresh  contingent,  the  whole  list  of  her  ap 
parent  London  acquaintance — which  was  again  a  thing 
in  the  manner  of  little  princesses  for  whom  the  princely 
art  was  a  matter  of  course.  That  was  what  she  was 
learning  to  do,  to  fill  out  as  a  matter  of  course  her 
appointed,  her  expected,  her  imposed  character;  and, 
though  there  were  latent  considerations  that  somewhat 

73 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

interfered  with  the  lesson,  she  was  having  to-night  an 
inordinate  quantity  of  practice,  none  of  it  so  successful 
as  when,  quite  wittingly,  she  directed  it  at  Lady  Castle- 
dean,  who  was  reduced  by  it  at  last  to  an  unprecedented 
state  of  passivity.  The  perception  of  this  high  result 
caused  Mrs.  Assingham  fairly  to  flush  with  respon 
sive  joy;  she  glittered  at  her  young  friend,  from  mo 
ment  to  moment,  quite  feverishly;  it  was  positively  as 
if  her  young  friend  had,  in  some  marvellous,  sudden, 
supersubtle  way,  become  a  source  of  succour  to  herself, 
become  beautifully,  divinely  retributive.  The  inten 
sity  of  the  taste  of  these  registered  phenomena  was  in 
fact  that  somehow,  by  a  process  and  through  a  con 
nexion  not  again  to  be  traced,  she  so  practised,  at  the 
same  time,  on  Amerigo  and  Charlotte — with  only  the 
drawback,  her  constant  check  and  second-thought,  that 
she  concomitantly  practised  perhaps  still  more  on  her 
father. 

This  last  was  a  danger  indeed  that,  for  much  of  the 
ensuing  time,  had  its  hours  of  strange  beguilement — 
those  at  which  her  sense  for  precautions  so  suffered 
itself  to  lapse  that  she  felt  her  communion  with  him 
more  intimate  than  any  other.  It  couldn't  but  pass 
between  them  that  something  singular  was  happening 
— so  much  as  this  she  again  and  again  said  to  herself ; 
whereby  the  comfort  of  it  was  there,  after  all,  to  be 
noted,  just  as  much  as  the  possible  peril,  and  she  could 
think  of  the  couple  they  formed  together  as  groping, 
with  sealed  lips,  but  with  mutual  looks  that  had  never 
been  so  tender,  for  some  freedom,  some  fiction,  some 
figured  bravery,  under  which  they  might  safely  talk  of 

74 


THE  PRINCESS 

it.  The  moment  was  to  come — and  it  finally  came 
with  an  effect  as  penetrating  as  the  sound  that  follows 
the  pressure  of  an  electric  button — when  she  read  the 
least  helpful  of  meanings  into  the  agitation  she  had 
created.  The  merely  specious  description  of  their  case 
would  have  been  that,  after  being  for  a  long  time,  as 
a  family,  delightfully,  uninterruptedly  happy,  they  had 
still  had  a  new  felicity  to  discover ;  a  felicity  for  which, 
blessedly,  her  father's  appetite  and  her  own,  in  particu 
lar,  had  been  kept  fresh  and  grateful.  This  livelier 
march  of  their  intercourse  as  a  whole  was  the  thing 
that  occasionally  determined  in  him  the  clutching  in 
stinct  we  have  glanced  at ;  very  much  as  if  he  had  said 
to  her,  in  default  of  her  breaking  silence  first :  "Every 
thing  is  remarkably  pleasant,  isn't  it? — but  where,  for 
it,  after  all,  are  we?  up  in  a  balloon  and  whirling 
through  space,  or  down  in  the  depths  of  the  earth,  in 
the  glimmering  passages  of  a  gold-mine  ?"  The  equi 
librium,  the  precious  condition,  lasted  in  spite  of  re 
arrangement  ;  there  had  been  a  fresh  distribution  of  the 
different  weights,  but  the  balance  persisted  and  tri 
umphed  :  all  of  which  was  just  the  reason  why  she  was 
forbidden,  face  to  face  with  the  companion  of  her  ad 
venture,  the  experiment  of  a  test.  If  they  balanced 
they  balanced — she  had  to  take  that;  it  deprived  her 
of  every  pretext  for  arriving,  by  however  covert  a 
process,  at  what  he  thought. 

But  she  had  her  hours,  thus,  of  feeling  supremely 
linked  to  him  by  the  rigour  of  their  law,  and  when  it 
came  over  her  that,  all  the  while,  the  wish,  on  his  side, 
to  spare  her  might  be  what  most  worked  with  him,  this 

75 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

very  fact  of  their  seeming  to  have  nothing  "inward" 
really  to  talk  about  wrapped  him  up  for  her  in  a  kind 
of  sweetness  that  was  wanting,  as  a  consecration,  even 
in  her  yearning  for  her  husband.  She  was  powerless, 
however,  was  only  more  utterly  hushed,  when  the  in 
terrupting  flash  came,  when  she  would  have  been  all 
ready  to  say  to  him,  "Yes,  this  is  by  every  appearance 
the  best  time  we've  had  yet ;  but  don't  you  see,  all  the 
same,  how  they  must  be  working  together  for  it,  and 
how  my  very  success,  my  success  in  shifting  our  beau 
tiful  harmony  to  a  new  basis,  comes  round  to  being 
their  success,  above  all ;  their  cleverness,  their  amiabil 
ity,  their  power  to  hold  out,  their  complete  possession, 
in  short,  of  our  life?"  For  how  could  she  say  as  much 
as  that  without  saying  a  great  deal  more  ?  without  say 
ing  "They'll  do  everything  in  the  world  that  suits  us, 
save  only  one  thing — prescribe  a  line  for  us  that  will 
make  them  separate."  How  could  she  so  much  as 
imagine  herself  even  faintly  murmuring  that  without 
putting  into  his  mouth  the  very  words  that  would  have 
made  her  quail?  "Separate,  my  dear?  Do  you  want 
them  to  separate?  Then  you  want  us  to — you  and 
me  ?  For  how  can  the  one  separation  take  place  with 
out  the  other?"  That  was  the  question  that,  in  spirit, 
she  had  heard  him  ask — with  its  dread  train,  more 
over,  of  involved  and  connected  inquiries.  Their  own 
separation,  his  and  hers,  was  of  course  perfectly  think 
able,  but  only  on  the  basis  of  the  sharpest  of  reasons. 
Well,  the  sharpest,  the  very  sharpest,  would  be  that 
they  could  no  longer  afford,  as  it  were,  he  to  let  his 
wife,  she  to  let  her  husband,  "run"  them  in  such  com- 

76 


THE  PRINCESS 

pact  formation.  And  say  they  accepted  this  account 
of  their  situation  as  a  practical  finality,  acting  upon  it 
and  proceeding  to  a  division,  would  no  sombre  ghosts 
of  the  smothered  past,  on  either  side,  show,  across  the 
widening  strait,  pale  unappeased  faces,  or  raise,  in  the 
very  passage,  deprecating,  denouncing  hands? 

Meanwhile,  however  such  things  might  be,  she  was 
to  have  occasion  to  say  to  herself  that  there  might  be 
but  a  deeper  treachery  in  recoveries  and  reassurances. 
She  was  to  feel  alone  again,  as  she  had  felt  at  the  issue 
of  her  high  tension  with  her  husband  during  their  re 
turn  from  meeting  the  Castledeans  in  Eaton  Square. 
The  evening  in  question  had  left  her  with  a  larger 
alarm,  but  then  a  lull  had  come — the  alarm,  after  all, 
was  yet  to  be  confirmed.  There  came  an  hour,  inevi 
tably,  when  she  knew,  with  a  chill,  what  she  had  feared 
and  why;  it  had  taken,  this  hour,  a  month  to  arrive, 
but  to  find  it  before  her  was  thoroughly  to  recognise 
it,  for  it  showed  her  sharply  what  Amerigo  had  meant 
in  alluding  to  a  particular  use  that  they  might  make, 
for  their  reaffirmed  harmony  and  prosperity,  of  Char 
lotte.  The  more  she  thought,  at  present,  of  the  tone 
he  had  employed  to  express  their  enjoyment  of  this 
resource,  the  more  it  came  back  to  her  as  the  product 
of  a  conscious  art  of  dealing  with  her.  He  had  been 
conscious,  at  the  moment,  of  many  things — conscious 
even,  not  a  little,  of  desiring,  and  thereby  of  needing, 
to  see  what  she  would  do  in  a  given  case.  The  given 
case  would  be  that  of  her  being  to  a  certain  extent,  as 
she  might  fairly  make  it  out,  menaced — horrible  as  it 
was  to  impute  to  him  any  intention  represented  by  such 

77 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

a  word.  Why  it  was  that  to  speak  of  making  her  step 
mother  intervene,  as  they  might  call  it,  in  a  question 
that  seemed,  just  then  and  there,  quite  peculiarly  their 
own  business — why  it  was  that  a  turn  so  familiar  and 
so  easy  should,  at  the  worst,  strike  her  as  charged  with 
the  spirit  of  a  threat,  was  an  oddity  disconnected,  for 
her,  temporarily,  from  its  grounds,  the  adventure  of  an 
imagination  within  her  that  possibly  had  lost  its  way. 
That,  precisely,  was  doubtless  why  she  had  learned  to 
wait,  as  the  weeks  passed  by,  with  a  fair,  or  rather 
indeed  with  an  excessive,  imitation  of  resumed  seren 
ity.  There  had  been  no  prompt  sequel  to  the  Prince's 
equivocal  light,  and  that  made  for  patience ;  yet  she  was 
none  the  less  to  have  to  admit,  after  delay,  that  the 
bread  he  had  cast  on  the  waters  had  come  home,  and 
that  she  should  thus  be  justified  of  her  old  apprehen 
sion.  The  consequence  of  this,  in  turn,  was  a  renewed 
pang  in  presence  of  his  remembered  ingenuity.  To 
be  ingenious  with  her — what  didn't,  what  mightn't  that 
mean,  when  she  had  so  absolutely  never,  at  any  point 
of  contact  with  him,  put  him,  by  as  much  as  the  value 
of  a  penny,  to  the  expense  of  sparing,  doubting,  fear 
ing  her,  of  having  in  any  way  whatever  to  reckon  with 
her?  The  ingenuity  had  been  in  his  simply  speaking 
of  their  use  of  Charlotte  as  if  it  were  common  to  them 
in  an  equal  degree,  and  his  triumph,  on  the  occasion, 
had  been  just  in  the  simplicity.  She  couldn't — and  he 
knew  it — say  what  was  true :  "Oh,  you  'use'  her,  and 
I  use  her,  if  you  will,  yes ;  but  we  use  her  ever  so  dif 
ferently  and  separately — not  at  all  in  the  same  way  or 
degree.  There's  nobody  we  really  use  together  but 

78 


THE  PRINCESS 

ourselves,  don't  you  see  ? — by  which  I  mean  that  where 
our  interests  are  the  same  I  can  so  beautifully,  so  ex 
quisitely  serve  you  for  everything,  and  you  can  so 
beautifully,  so  exquisitely  serve  me.  The  only  person 
either  of  us  needs  is  the  other  of  us ;  so  why,  as  a  mat 
ter  of  course,  in  such  a  case  as  this,  drag  in  Charlotte?" 
She  couldn't  so  challenge  him,  because  it  would  have 
been — and  there  she  was  paralysed — the  note.  It 
would  have  translated  itself  on  the  spot,  for  his  ear, 
into  jealousy;  and,  from  reverberation  to  repercussion, 
would  have  reached  her  father's  exactly  in  the  form  of 
a  cry  piercing  the  stillness  of  peaceful  sleep.  It  had 
been  for  many  days  almost  as  difficult  for  her  to  catch 
a  quiet  twenty  minutes  with  her  father  as  it  had  for 
merly  been  easy;  there  had  been  in  fact,  of  old — the 
time,  so  strangely,  seemed  already  far  away — an  in 
evitability  in  her  longer  passages  with  him,  a  sort  of 
domesticated  beauty  in  the  calculability,  round  about 
them,  of  everything.  But  at 'present  Charlotte  was 
almost  always  there  when  Amerigo  brought  her  to 
Eaton  Square,  where  Amerigo  was  constantly  bringing 
her ;  and  Amerigo  was  almost  always  there  when  Char 
lotte  brought  her  husband  to  Portland  Place,  where 
Charlotte  was  constantly  bringing  him.  The  fractions 
of  occasions,  the  chance  minutes  that  put  them  face  to 
face  had,  as  yet,  of  late,  contrived  to  count  but  little, 
between  them,  either  for  the  sense  of  opportunity  or 
for  that  of  exposure;  inasmuch  as  the  lifelong  rhythm 
of  their  intercourse  made  against  all  cursory  handling 
of  deep  things.  They  had  never  availed  themselves  of 
any  given  quarter-of-an-hour  to  gossip  about  funda- 

79 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

mentals ;  they  moved  slowly  through  large  still  spaces ; 
they  could  be  silent  together,  at  any  time,  beautifully, 
with  much  more  comfort  than  hurriedly  expressive. 
It  appeared  indeed  to  have  become  true  that  their 
common  appeal  measured  itself,  for  vividness,  just  by 
this  economy  of  sound;  they  might  have  been  talking 
"at"  each  other  when  they  talked  with  their  compan 
ions,  but  these  latter,  assuredly,  were  not  in  any  directer 
way  to  gain  light  on  the  current  phase  of  their  rela 
tion.  Such  were  some  of  the  reasons  for  which  Mag 
gie  suspected  fundamentals,  as  I  have  called  them,  to 
be  rising,  by  a  new  movement,  to  the  surface — sus 
pected  it  one  morning  late  in  May,  when  her  father  pre 
sented  himself  in  Portland  Place  alone.  He  had  his 
pretext — of  that  she  was  fully  aware:  the  Principino, 
two  days  before,  had  shown  signs,  happily  not  per 
sistent,  of  a  feverish  cold  and  had  notoriously  been 
obliged  to  spend  the  interval  at  home.  This  was 
ground,  ample  ground,  for  punctual  inquiry;  but  what 
it  wasn't  ground  for,  she  quickly  found  herself  reflect 
ing,  was  his  having  managed,  in  the  interest  of  his 
visit,  to  dispense  so  unwontedly — as  their  life  had  re 
cently  come  to  be  arranged — with  his  wife's  attend 
ance.  It  had  so  happened  that  she  herself  was,  for  the 
hour,  exempt  from  her  husband's,  and  it  will  at  once 
be  seen  that  the  hour  had  a  quality  all  its  own  when  I 
note  that,  remembering  how  the  Prince  had  looked  in 
to  say  he  was  going  out,  the  Princess  whimsically  won 
dered  if  their  respective  sposi  mightn't  frankly  be 
meeting,  whimsically  hoped  indeed  they  were  tempo 
rarily  so  disposed  of.  Strange  was  her  need,  at  mo- 

80 


THE  PRINCESS 

ments,  to  think  of  them  as  not  attaching  an  excessive 
importance  to  their  repudiation  of  the  general  practice 
that  had  rested  only  a  few  weeks  before  on  such  a  con 
secrated  Tightness.  Repudiations,  surely,  were  not  in 
the  air — they  had  none  of  them  come  to  that;  for 
wasn't  she  at  this  minute  testifying  directly  against 
them  by  her  own  behaviour?  When  she  should  con 
fess  to  fear  of  being  alone  with  her  father,  to  fear  of 
what  he  might  then — ah,  with  such  a  slow,  painful 
motion  as  she  had  a  horror  of ! — say  to  her,  then  would 
be  time  enough  for  Amerigo  and  Charlotte  to  confess 
to  not  liking  to  appear  to  foregather. 

She  had  this  morning  a  wonderful  consciousness 
both  of  dreading  a  particular  question  from  him  and 
of  being  able  to  check,  yes  even  to  disconcert,  mag 
nificently,  by  her  apparent  manner  of  receiving  it,  any 
restless  imagination  he  might  have  about  its  impor 
tance.  The  day,  bright  and  soft,  had  the  breath  of 
summer;  it  made  them  talk,  to  begin  with,  of  Fawns, 
of  the  way  Fawns  invited — Maggie  aware,  the  while, 
that  in  thus  regarding,  with  him,  the  sweetness  of  its 
invitation  to  one  couple  just  as  much  as  to  another, 
her  humbugging  smile  grew  very  nearly  convulsive. 
That  was  it,  and  there  was  relief  truly,  of  a  sort,  in 
taking  it  in :  she  was  humbugging  him  already,  by  ab 
solute  necessity,  as  she  had  never,  never  done  in  her 
life — doing  it  up  to  the  full  height  of  what  she  had 
allowed  for.  The  necessity,  in  the  great  dimly-shin 
ing  room  where,  declining,  for  his  reasons,  to  sit  down, 
he  moved  about  in  Amerigo's  very  footsteps,  the  ne 
cessity  affected  her  as  pressing  upon  her  with  the  very 

VOL.  II.— 6  8 1 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

force  of  the  charm  itself;  of  the  old  pleasantness, 
between  them,  so  candidly  playing  up  there  again;  of 
the  positive  flatness  of  their  tenderness,  a  surface  all 
for  familiar  use,  quite  as  if  generalised  from  the  long 
succession  of  tapestried  sofas,  sweetly  faded,  on  which 
his  theory  of  contentment  had  sat,  through  unmeas 
ured  pauses,  beside  her  own.  She  knew,  from  this  in 
stant,  knew  in  advance  and  as  well  as  anything  would 
ever  teach  her,  that  she  must  never  intermit  for  a  soli 
tary  second  her  so  highly  undertaking  to  prove  that 
there  was  nothing  the  matter  with  her.  She  saw,  of 
a  sudden,  everything  she  might  say  or  do  in  the  light 
of  that  undertaking,  established  connections  from  it 
with  any  number  of  remote  matters,  struck  herself,  for 
instance,  as  acting  all  in  its  interest  when  she  proposed 
their  going  out,  in  the  exercise  of  their  freedom  and 
in  homage  to  the  season,  for  a  turn  in  the  Regent's 
Park.  This  resort  was  close  at  hand,  at  the  top  of 
Portland  Place,  and  the  Principino,  beautifully  better, 
had  already  proceeded  there  under  high  attendance :  all 
of  which  considerations  were  defensive  for  Maggie,  all 
of  which  became,  to  her  mind,  part  of  the  business  of 
cultivating  continuity. 

Upstairs,  while  she  left  him  to  put  on  something  to 
go  out  in,  the  thought  of  his  waiting  below  for  her, 
in  possession  of  the  empty  house,  brought  with  it, 
sharply  if  briefly,  one  of  her  abrupt  arrests  of  consist 
ency,  the  brush  of  a  vain  imagination  almost  paralys 
ing  her,  often,  for  the  minute,  before  her  glass — the 
vivid  look,  in  other  words,  of  the  particular  difference 
his  marriage  had  made.  The  particular  difference 

82 


THE  PRINCESS 

seemed  at  such  instants  the  loss,  more  than  anything 
else,  of  their  old  freedom,  their  never  having  had  to 
think,  where  they  were  together  concerned,  of  any  one, 
of  anything  but  each  other.  It  hadn't  been  her  mar 
riage  that  did  it;  that  had  never,  for  three  seconds, 
suggested  to  either  of  them  that  they  must  act  diplo 
matically,  must  reckon  with  another  presence — no,  not 
even  with  her  husband's.  She  groaned  to  herself, 
while  the  vain  imagination  lasted,  "Why  did  he  marry? 
ah,  why  did  he?"  and  then  it  came  up  to  her  more  than 
ever  that  nothing  could  have  been  more  beautiful  than 
the  way  in  which,  till  Charlotte  came  so  much  more 
closely  into  their  life,  Amerigo  hadn't  interfered. 
What  she  had  gone  on  owing  him  for  this  mounted  up 
again,  to  her  eyes,  like  a  column  of  figures — or  call  it 
even,  if  one  would,  a  house  of  cards ;  it  was  her  father's 
wonderful  act  that  had  tipped  the  house  down  and 
made  the  sum  wrong.  With  all  of  which,  immediately 
after  her  question,  her  "Why  did  he,  why  did  he?" 
rushed  back,  inevitably,  the  confounding,  the  over 
whelming  wave  of  the  knowledge  of  his  reason.  "He 
did  it  for  me,  he  did  it  for  me,"  she  moaned,  "he  did 
it,  exactly,  that  our  freedom — meaning,  beloved  man, 
simply  and  solely  mine — should  be  greater  instead  of 
less ;  he  did  it,  divinely,  to  liberate  me  so  far  as  possible 
from  caring  what  became  of  him."  She  found  time 
upstairs,  even  in  her  haste,  as  she  had  repeatedly  found 
time  before,  to  let  the  wonderments  involved  in  these 
recognitions  flash  at  her  with  their  customary  effect  of 
making  her  blink :  the  question  in  especial  of  whether 
she  might  find  her  solution  in  acting,  herself,  in  the 

83 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

spirit  of  what  he  had  done,  in  forcing  her  "care"  really 
to  grow  as  much  less  as  he  had  tried  to  make  it.  Thus 
she  felt  the  whole  weight  of  their  case  drop  afresh 
upon  her  shoulders,  was  confronted,  unmistakably, 
with  the  prime  source  of  her  haunted  state.  It  all 
came  from  her  not  having  been  able  not  to  mind — not 
to  mind  what  became  of  him;  not  having  been  able, 
without  anxiety,  to  let  him  go  his  way  and  take  his 
risk  and  lead  his  life.  She  had  made  anxiety  her 
stupid  little  idol;  and  absolutely  now,  while  she  stuck 
a  long  pin,  a  trifle  fallaciously,  into  her  hat — she  had, 
with  an  approach  to  irritation,  told  her  maid,  a  new 
woman,  whom  she  had  lately  found  herself  thinking  of 
as  abysmal,  that  she  didn't  want  her — she  tried  to 
focus  the  possibility  of  some  understanding  between 
them  in  consequence  of  which  he  should  cut  loose. 

Very  near  indeed  it  looked,  any  such  possibility! — 
that  consciousness,  too,  had  taken  its  turn  by  the  time 
she  was  ready;  all  the  vibration,  all  the  emotion  of 
this  present  passage  being,  precisely,  in  the  very  sweet 
ness  of  their  lapse  back  into  the  conditions  of  the 
simpler  time,  into  a  queer  resemblance  between  the 
aspect  and  the  feeling  of  the  moment  and  those  of  num 
berless  other  moments  that  were  sufficiently  far  away. 
She  had  been  quick  in  her  preparation,  in  spite  of  the 
flow  of  the  tide  that  sometimes  took  away  her  breath ; 
but  a  pause,  once  more,  was  still  left  for  her  to  make, 
a  pause,  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  before  she  came  down 
to  him,  in  the  span  of  which  she  asked  herself  if  it 
weren't  thinkable,  from  the  perfectly  practical  point  of 
view,  that  she  should  simply  sacrifice  him.  She  didn't 

84 


THE  PRINCESS 

go  into  the  detail  of  what  sacrificing  him  would  mean 
— she  didn't  need  to ;  so  distinct  was  it,  in  one  of  her 
restless  lights,  that  there  he  was  awaiting  her,  that  she 
should  find  him  walking  up  and  down  the  drawing- 
room  in  the  warm,  fragrant  air  to  which  the  open  win 
dows  and  the  abundant  flowers  contributed ;  slowly  and 
vaguely  moving  there  and  looking  very  slight  and 
young  and,  superficially,  manageable,  almost  as  much 
like  her  child,  putting  it  a  little  freely,  as  like  her 
parent;  with  the  appearance  about  him,  above  all,  of 
having  perhaps  arrived  just  on  purpose  to  say  it  to 
her,  himself,  in  so  many  words  :  "Sacrifice  me,  my  own 
love;  do  sacrifice  me,  do  sacrifice  me!"  Should  she 
want  to,  should  she  insist  on  it,  she  might  verily  hear 
him  bleating  it  at  her,  all  conscious  and  all  accommo 
dating,  like  some  precious,  spotless,  exceptionally  in 
telligent  lamb.  The  positive  effect  of  the  intensity  of 
this  figure,  however,  was  to  make  her  shake  it  away  in 
her  resumed  descent  ;»and  after  she  had  rejoined  him, 
after  she  had  picked  him  up,  she  was  to  know  the  full 
pang  of  the  thought  that  her  impossibility  was  made, 
absolutely,  by  his  consciousness,  by  the  lucidity  of  his 
intention :  this  she  felt  while  she  smiled  there  for  him, 
again,  all  hypocritically ;  while  she  drew  on  fair,  fresh 
gloves;  while  she  interrupted  the  process  first  to  give 
his  necktie  a  slightly  smarter  twist  and  then  to  make 
up  to  him  for  her  hidden  madness  by  rubbing  her  nose 
into  his  cheek  according  to  the  tradition  of  their  frank 
est  levity.  From  the  instant  she  should  be  able  to  con 
vict  him  of  intending,  every  issue  would  be  closed  and 
her  hypocrisy  would  have  to  redouble.  The  only  way 

85 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

to  sacrifice  him  would  be  to  do  so  without  his  dream 
ing  what  it  might  be  for.  She  kissed  him,  she  ar 
ranged  his  cravat,  she  dropped  remarks,  she  guided  him 
out,  she  held  his  arm,  not  to  be  led,  but  to  lead  him, 
and  taking  it  to  her  by  much  the  same  intimate  pres 
sure  she  had  always  used,  when  a  little  girl,  to  mark 
the  inseparability  of  her  doll — she  did  all  these  things 
so  that  he  should  sufficiently  fail  to  dream  of  what 
they  might  be  for. 


86 


XXIX 

THERE  was  nothing  to  show  that  her  effort  in  any 
degree  fell  short  till  they  got  well  into  the  Park  and 
he  struck  her  as  giving,  unexpectedly,  the  go-by  to 
any  serious  search  for  the  Principino.  The  way  they 
sat  down  awhile  in  the  sun  was  a  sign  of  that;  his 
dropping  with  her  into  the  first  pair  of  sequestered 
chairs  they  came  across  and  waiting  a  little,  after  they 
were  placed,  as  if  now  at  last  she  might  bring  out,  as 
between  them,  something  more  specific.  It  made  her 
but  feel  the  more  sharply  how  the  specific,  in  almost 
any  direction,  was  utterly  forbidden  her — how  the  use 
of  it  would  be,  for  all  the  world,  like  undoing  the  leash 
of  a  dog  eager  to  follow  up  a  scent.  It  would  come 
out,  the  specific,  where  the  dog  would  come  out ;  would 
run  to  earth,  somehow,  the  truth — for  she  was  believ 
ing  herself  in  relation  to  the  truth! — at  which  she 
mustn't  so  much  as  indirectly  point.  Such,  at  any  rate, 
was  the  fashion  in  which  her  passionate  prudence 
played  over  possibilities  of  danger,  reading  symptoms 
and  betrayals  into  everything  she  looked  at,  and  yet 
having  to  make  it  evident,  while  she  recognised  them, 
that  she  didn't  wince.  There  were  moments  between 
them,  in  their  chairs,  when  he  might  have  been  watch 
ing  her  guard  herself  and  trying  to  think  of  something 
new  that  would  trip  her  up.  There  were  pauses  during 

8? 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

which,  with  her  affection  as  sweet  and  still  as  the  sun 
shine,  she  might  yet,  as  at  some  hard  game,  over  a 
table,  for  money,  have  been  defying  him  to  fasten  upon 
her  the  least  little  complication  of  consciousness.  She 
was  positively  proud,  afterwards,  of  the  great  style  in 
which  she  had  kept  this  up ;  later  on,  at  the  hour's  end, 
when  they  had  retraced  their  steps  to  find  Amerigo 
and  Charlotte  awaiting  them  at  the  house,  she  was  able 
to  say  to  herself  that,  truly,  she  had  put  her  plan 
through;  even  though  once  more  setting  herself  the 
difficult  task  of  making  their  relation,  every  minute 
of  the  time,  not  fall  below  the  standard  of  that  other 
hour,  in  the  treasured  past,  which  hung  there  behind 
them  like  a  framed  picture  in  a  museum,  a  high  water 
mark  for  the  history  of  their  old  fortune;  the  summer 
evening,  in  the  park  at  Fawns,  when,  side  by  side  under 
the  trees  just  as  now,  they  had  let  their  happy  confi 
dence  lull  them  with  its  most  golden  tone.  There  had 
been  the  possibility  of  a  trap  for  her,  at  present,  in  the 
very  question  of  their  taking  up  anew  that  residence; 
wherefore  she  had  not  been  the  first  to  sound  it,  in 
spite  of  the  impression  from  him  of  his  holding  off  to 
see  what  she  would  do.  She  was  saying  to  herself  in 
secret:  "Can  we  again,  in  this  form,  migrate  there? 
Can  I,  for  myself,  undertake  it?  face  all  the  intenser 
keeping-up  and  stretching-out,  indefinitely,  impossi 
bly,  that  our  conditions  in  the  country,  as  we've  estab 
lished  and  accepted  them,  would  stand  for?"  She  had 
positively  lost  herself  in  this  inward  doubt — so  much 
she  was  subsequently  to  remember;  but  remembering 
then  too  that  her  companion,  though  perceptibly  per- 

88 


THE   PRINCESS 

haps  as  if  not  to  be  eager,  had  broken  the  ice  very 
much  as  he  had  broken  it  in  Eaton  Square  after  the 
banquet  to  the  Castledeans. 

Her  mind  had  taken  a  long  excursion,  wandered  far 
into  the  vision  of  what  a  summer  at  Fawns,  with 
Amerigo  and  Charlotte  still  more  eminently  in  presence 
against  that  higher  sky,  would  bring  forth.  Wasn't 
her  father  meanwhile  only  pretending  to  talk  of  it? — 
just  as  she  was,  in  a  manner,  pretending  to  listen?  He 
got  off  it,  finally,  at  all  events,  for  the  transition  it 
couldn't  well  help  thrusting  out  at  him ;  it  had  amount 
ed  exactly  to  an  arrest  of  her  private  excursion  by  the 
sense  that  he  had  begun  to  imitate — oh,  as  never  yet! 
— the  ancient  tone  of  gold.  It  had  verily  come  from 
him  at  last,  the  question  of  whether  she  thought  it 
would  be  very  good — but  very  good  indeed — that  he 
should  leave  England  for  a  series  of  weeks,  on  some 
pretext,  with  the  Prince.  Then  it  had  been  that  she 
was  to  know  her  husband's  "menace"  hadn't  really 
dropped,  since  she  was  face  to  face  with  the  effect  of 
it.  Ah,  the  effect  of  it  had  occupied  all  the  rest  of 
their  walk,  had  stayed  out  with  them  and  come  home 
with  them,  besides  making  it  impossible  that  they 
shouldn't  presently  feign  to  recollect  how  rejoining 
the  child  had  been  their  original  purpose.  Maggie's 
uneffaced  note  was  that  it  had,  at  the  end  of  five  min 
utes  more,  driven  them  to  that  endeavour  as  to  a 
refuge,  and  caused  them  afterwards  to  rejoice,  as  well, 
that  the  boy's  irrepressibly  importunate  company,  in 
due  course  secured  and  enjoyed,  with  the  extension  im 
parted  by  his  governess,  a  person  expectant  of  con- 

89 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

sideration,  constituted  a  cover  for  any  awkwardness. 
For  that  was  what  it  had  all  come  to,  that  the  dear 
man  had  spoken  to  her  to  try  her — quite  as  he  had 
been  spoken  to  himself  by  Charlotte,  with  the  same 
fine  idea.  The  Princess  took  it  in,  on  the  spot,  firmly 
grasping  it;  she  heard  them  together,  her  father  and 
his  wife,  dealing  with  the  queer  case.  "The  Prince 
tells  me  that  Maggie  has  a  plan  for  your  taking  some 
foreign  journey  with  him,  and,  as  he  likes  to  do  every 
thing  she  wants,  he  has  suggested  my  speaking  to  you 
for  it  as  the  thing  most  likely  to  make  you  consent. 
So  I  do  speak — see? — being  always  so  eager  myself, 
as  you  know,  to  meet  Maggie's  wishes.  I  speak,  but 
without  quite  understanding,  this  time,  what  she  has 
in  her  head.  Why  should  she,  of  a  sudden,  at  this 
particular  moment,  desire  to  ship  you  off  together  and 
to  remain  here  alone  with  me?  The  compliment's  all 
to  me,  I  admit,  and  you  must  decide  quite  as  you  like. 
The  Prince  is  quite  ready,  evidently,  to  do  his  part — 
but  you'll  have  it  out  with  him.  That  is  you'll  have  it 
out  with  her."  Something  of  that  kind  was  what,  in 
her  mind's  ear,  Maggie  heard — and  this,  after  his  wait 
ing  for  her  to  appeal  to  him  directly,  was  her  father's 
invitation  to  her  to  have  it  out.  Well,  as  she  could 
say  to  herself  all  the  rest  of  the  day,  that  was  what 
they  did  while  they  continued  to  sit  there  in  their 
penny  chairs,  that  was  what  they  had  done  as  much 
as  they  would  now  ever,  ever,  have  out  anything.  The 
measure  of  this,  at  least,  had  been  given,  that  each 
would  fight  to  the  last  for  the  protection,  for  the  per 
version,  of  any  real  anxiety.  She  had  confessed,  in- 

90 


THE  PRINCESS 

stantly,  with  her  humbugging  grin,  not  flinching  by  a 
hair,  meeting  his  eyes  as  mildly  as  he  met  hers,  she 
had  confessed  to  her  fancy  that  they  might  both,  he 
and  his  son-in-law,  have  welcomed  such  an  escapade, 
since  they  had  both  been  so  long  so  furiously  domestic. 
She  had  almost  cocked  her  hat  under  the  inspiration  of 
this  opportunity  to  hint  how  a  couple  of  spirited  young 
men,  reacting  from  confinement  and  sallying  forth  arm- 
in-arm,  might  encounter  the  agreeable  in  forms  that 
would  strike  them  for  the  time  at  least  as  novel.  She 
had  felt  for  fifty  seconds,  with  her  eyes,  all  so  sweetly 
and  falsely,  in  her  companion's,  horribly  vulgar;  yet 
without  minding  it  either — such  luck  should  she  have 
if  to  be  nothing  worse  than  vulgar  would  see  her 
through.  "And  I  thought  Amerigo  might  like  it 
better,"  she  had  said,  "than  wandering  off  alone." 

"Do  you  mean  that  he  won't  go  unless  I  take  him?" 

She  had  considered  here,  and  never  in  her  life  had 
she  considered  so  promptly  and  so  intently.  If  she 
really  put  it  that  way,  her  husband,  challenged,  might 
belie  the  statement;  so  that  what  would  that  do  but 
make  her  father  wonder,  make  him  perhaps  ask 
straight  out,  why  she  was  exerting  pressure?  She 
couldn't  of  course  afford  to  be  suspected  for  an  instant 
of  exerting  pressure;  which  was  why  she  was  obliged 
only  to  make  answer :  "Wouldn't  that  be  just  what  you 
must  have  out  with  him?" 

"Decidedly — if  he  makes  me  the  proposal.  But  he 
hasn't  made  it  yet." 

Oh,  once  more,  how  she  was  to  feel  she  had  smirked ! 
"Perhaps  he's  too  shy !" 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"Because  you're  so  sure  he  so  really  wants  my 
company?" 

"I  think  he  has  thought  you  might  like  it." 

"Well,   I   should !"     But  with  this  he  looked 

away  from  her,  and  she  held  her  breath  to  hear  him 
either  ask  if  she  wished  him  to  address  the  question 
to  Amerigo  straight,  or  inquire  if  she  should  be  greatly 
disappointed  by  his  letting  it  drop.  What  had  "settled" 
her,  as  she  was  privately  to  call  it,  was  that  he  had 
done  neither  of  these  things,  and  had  thereby  markedly 
stood  off  from  the  risk  involved  in  trying  to  draw  out 
her  reason.  To  attenuate,  on  the  other  hand,  this  ap 
pearance,  and  quite  as  if  to  fill  out  the  too  large  recep 
tacle  made,  so  musingly,  by  his  abstention,  he  had 
himself  presently  given  her  a  reason — had  positively 
spared  her  the  effort  of  asking  whether  he  judged 
Charlotte  not  to  have  approved.  He  had  taken  every 
thing  on  himself — that  was  what  had  settled  her.  She 
had  had  to  wait  very  little  more  to  feel,  with  this,  how 
much  he  was  taking.  The  point  he  made  was  his  lack 
of  any  eagerness  to  put  time  and  space,  on  any  such 
scale,  between  himself  and  his  wife.  He  wasn't  so 
unhappy  with  her — far  from  it,  and  Maggie  was  to 
hold  that  he  had  grinned  back,  paternally,  through  his 
rather  shielding  glasses,  in  easy  emphasis  of  this — as 
to  be  able  to  hint  that  he  required  the  relief  of  absence. 
Therefore,  unless  it  was  for  the  Prince  himself ! 

"Oh,  I  don't  think  it  would  have  been  for  Amerigo 
himself.  Amerigo  and  I,"  Maggie  had  said,  "per 
fectly  rub  on  together." 

"Well  then,  there  we  are." 

92 


THE  PRINCESS 

"I  see" — and  she  had  again,  with  sublime  bland- 
ness,  assented.  "There  we  are." 

"Charlotte  and  I  too,"  her  father  had  gaily  pro 
ceeded,  "perfectly  rub  on  together."  And  then  he  had 
appeared  for  a  little  to  be  making  time.  "To  put  it- 
only  so,"  he  had  mildly  and  happily  added — "to  put 
it  only  so !"  He  had  spoken  as  if  he  might  easily  put 
it  much  better,  yet  as  if  the  humour  of  contented  un 
derstatement  fairly  sufficed  for  the  occasion.  He  had 
played  then,  either  all  consciously  or  all  unconsciously, 
into  Charlotte's  hands;  and  the  effect  of  this  was  to 
render  trebly  oppressive  Maggie's  conviction  of  Char 
lotte's  plan.  She  had  done  what  she  wanted,  his  wife 
had — which  was  also  what  Amerigo  had  made  her 
do.  She  had  kept  her  test,  Maggie's  test,  from  becom 
ing  possible,  and  had  applied  instead  a  test  of  her  own. 
It  was  exactly  as  if  she  had  known  that  her  stepdaugh 
ter  would  be  afraid  to  be  summoned  to  say;  under  the 
least  approach  to  cross-examination,  why  any  change 
was  desirable;  and  it  was,  for  our  young  woman  her 
self,  still  more  prodigiously,  as  if  her  father  had  been 
capable  of  calculations  to  match,  of  judging1  it  impor 
tant  he  shouldn't  be  brought  to  demand  of  her  what 
was  the  matter  with  her.  Why  otherwise,  with  such 
an  opportunity,  hadn't  he  demanded  it  ?  Always  from 
calculation — that  was  why.  that  was  why.  He  was 
terrified  of  the  retort  he  might  have  invoked :  "What, 
my  dear,  if  you  come  to  that,  is  the  matter  with  you?" 
When,  a  minute  later  on,  he  had  followed  up  his  last 
note  by  a  touch  or  two  designed  still  further  to  conjure 
away  the  ghost  of  the  anomalous,  at  that  climax. 

93 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

verily  she  would  have  had  to  be  dumb  to  the  question. 
"There  seems  a  kind  of  charm,  doesn't  there?  on  our 
life — and  quite  as  if,  just  lately,  it  had  got  itself  some 
how  renewed,  had  waked  up  refreshed.  A  kind  of 
wicked  selfish  prosperity  perhaps,  as  if  we  had  grabbed 
everything,  fixed  everything,  down  to  the  last  lovely 
object  for  the  last  glass  case  of  the  last  corner,  left 
over,  of  my  old  show.  That's  the  only  take-off,  that  it 
has  made  us  perhaps  lazy,  a  wee  bit  languid — lying  like 
gods  together,  all  careless  of  mankind." 

"Do  you  consider  that  we're  languid?" — that  form 
of  rejoinder  she  had  jumped  at  for  the  sake  of  its 
pretty  lightness.  "Do  you  consider  that  we  are  care 
less  of  mankind? — living  as  we  do  in  the  biggest 
crowd  in  the  world,  and  running  about  always  pursued 
and  pursuing." 

It  had  made  him  think  indeed  a  little  longer  than 
she  had  meant;  but  he  came  up  again,  as  she  might 
have  said,  smiling.  "Wel-1,  I  don't  know.  We  get 
nothing  but  the  fun,  do  we?" 

"No,"  she  had  hastened  to  declare;  "we  certainly 
get  nothing  but  the  fun." 

"We  do  it  all,"  he  had  remarked,  "so  beautifully." 

"We  do  it  all  so  beautifully."  She  hadn't  denied 
this  for  a  moment.  "I  see  what  you  mean." 

"Well,  I  mean  too,"  he  had  gone  on,  "that  we 
haven't,  no  doubt,  enough,  the  sense  of  difficulty." 

"Enough?     Enough  for  what?" 

"Enough  not  to  be  selfish." 

"I  don't  think  you  are  selfish,"  she  had  returned — 
and  had  managed  not  to  wail  it. 

94 


THE  PRINCESS 

"I  don't  say  that  it's  me  particularly — or  that  it's 
you  or  Charlotte  or  Amerigo.  But  we're  selfish  to 
gether — we  move  as  a  selfish  mass.  You  see  we  want 
always  the  same  thing,"  he  had  gone  on — "and  that 
holds  us,  that  binds  us,  together.  We  want  each 
other,"  he  had  further  explained;  "only  wanting  it, 
each  time,  for  each  other.  That's  what  I  call  the 
happy  spell;  but  it's  also,  a  little,  possibly,  the  im 
morality." 

"  The  immorality'  ?"  she  had  pleasantly  echoed. 

"Well,  we're  tremendously  moral  for  ourselves — 
that  is  for  each  other ;  and  I  won't  pretend  that  I  know 
exactly  at  whose  particular  personal  expense  you  and 
I,  for  instance,  are  happy.  What  it  comes  to,  I  dare 
say,  is  that  there's  something  haunting — as  if  it  were 
a  bit  uncanny — in  such  a  consciousness  of  our  general 
comfort  and  privilege.  Unless  indeed,"  he  had  ram 
bled  on,  "it's  only  I  to  whom,  fantastically,  it  says  so 
much.  That's  all  I  mean,  at  any  rate — that  it's  'sort 
of  soothing;  as  if  we  were  sitting  about  on  divans, 
with  pigtails,  smoking  opium  and  seeing  visions.  'Let 
us  then  be  up  and  doing' — what  is  it  Longfellow  says  ? 
That  seems  sometimes  to  ring  out;  like  the  police 
breaking  in — into  our  opium  den — to  give  us  a  shake. 
But  the  beauty  of  it  is,  at  the  same  time,  that  we  are 
doing ;  we're  doing,  that  is,  after  all,  what  we  went  in 
for.  We're  working  it,  our  life,  our  chance,  whatever 
you  may  call  it,  as  we  saw  it,  as  we  felt  it,  from  the 
first.  We  have  worked  it,  and  what  more  can  you  do 
than  that?  It's  a  good  deal  for  me,"  he  had  wound 
up,  "to  have  made  Charlotte  so  happy — to  have  so 

95 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

perfectly  contented  her.  You,  from  a  good  way  back, 
were  a  matter  of  course — I  mean  your  being  all  right ; 
so  that  I  needn't  mind  your  knowing  that  my  great 
interest,  since  then,  has  rather  inevitably  been  in  mak 
ing  sure  of  the  same  success,  very  much  to  your 
advantage  as  well,  for  Charlotte.  If  we've  worked  our 
life,  our  idea  really,  as  I  say — if  at  any  rate  I  can  sit 
here  and  say  that  I've  worked  my  share  of  it — it  has 
not  been  what  you  may  call  least  by  our  having  put 
Charlotte  so  at  her  ease.  That  has  been  soothing,  all 
round;  that  has  curled  up  as  the  biggest  of  the  blue 
fumes,  or  whatever  they  are,  of  the  opium.  Don't  you 
see  what  a  cropper  we  would  have  come  if  she  hadn't 
settled  down  as  she  has?"  And  he  had  concluded  by 
turning  to  Maggie  as  for  something  she  mightn't 
really  have  thought  of.  "You,  darling,  in  that  case,  I 
verily  believe,  would  have  been  the  one  to  hate  it 
most." 

"To  hate  it ?"  Maggie  had  wondered. 

"To  hate  our  having,  with  our  tremendous  inten 
tions,  not  brought  it  off.  And  I  daresay  I  should  have 
hated  it  for  you  even  more  than  for  myself." 

"That's  not  unlikely  perhaps  when  it  was  for  me, 
after  all,  that  you  did  it." 

He  had  hesitated,  but  only  a  moment.  "I  never  told 
you  so." 

"Well,  Charlotte  herself  soon  enough  told  me." 

"But  I  never  told  her,"  her  father  had  answered. 

"Are  you  very  sure?"  she  had  presently  asked. 

"Well,  I  like  to  think  how  thoroughly  I  was  taken 
with  her,  and  how  right  I  was,  and  how  fortunate,  to 

96 


THE  PRINCESS 

have  that  for  my  basis.     I  told  her  all  the  good  I 
thought  of  her." 

"Then  that,"  Maggie  had  returned,  "was  precisely 
part  of  the  good.  I  mean  it  was  precisely  part  of  it 
that  she  could  so  beautifully  understand." 

"Yes — understand  everything." 

"Everything — and  in  particular  your  reasons.  Her 
telling  me — that  showed  me  how  she  had  under 
stood." 

They  were  face  to  face  again  now,  and  she  saw  she 
had  made  his  colour  rise;  it  was  as  if  he  were  still  find 
ing  in  her  eyes  the  concrete  image,  the  enacted  scene, 
of  her  passage  with  Charlotte,  which  he  was  now  hear 
ing  of  for  the  first  time  and  as  to  which  it  would  have 
been  natural  he  should  question  her  further.  His  for 
bearance  to  do  so  would  but  mark,  precisely,  the  com 
plication  of  his  fears.  "What  she  does  like,"  he  finally 
said,  "is  the  way  it  has  succeeded." 

"Your  marriage?" 

"Yes — my  whole  idea.  The  way  I've  been  justified. 
That's  the  joy  I  give  her.  If  for  her,  either,  it  had 

failed !"     That,  however,  was  not  worth  talking 

about ;  he  had  broken  off.    "You  think  then  you  could 
now  risk  Fawns?" 

"'Risk'  it?" 

"Well,  morally — from  the  point  of  view  I  was  talk 
ing  of ;  that  of  our  sinking  deeper  into  sloth.  Our  sel 
fishness,  somehow,  seems  at  its  biggest  down  there." 

Maggie  had  allowed  him  the  amusement  of  her  not 
taking  this  up.  "Is  Charlotte,"  she  had  simply  asked, 
"really  ready?" 

VOL.  II.— 7  92 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"Oh,  if  you  and  I  and  Amerigo  are.  Whenever  one 
corners  Charlotte,"  he  had  developed  more  at  his  ease, 
"one  finds  that  she  only  wants  to  know  what  we  want. 
Which  is  what  we  got  her  for !" 

"What  we  got  her  for — exactly!"  And  so,  for  a 
little,  even  though  with  a  certain  effect  of  oddity  in 
their  more  or  less  successful  ease,  they  left  it;  left  it 
till  Maggie  made  the  remark  that  it  was  all  the  same 
wonderful  her  stepmother  should  be  willing,  before  the 
season  was  out,  to  exchange  so  much  company  for  so 
much  comparative  solitude. 

"Ah,"  he  had  then  made  answer,  "that's  because  her 
idea,  I  think,  this  time,  is  that  we  shall  have  more 
people,  more  than  we've  hitherto  had,  in  the  country. 
Don't  you  remember  that  that,  originally,  was  what 
we  were  to  get  her  for?" 

"Oh  yes — to  give  us  a  life."  Maggie  had  gone 
through  the  form  of  recalling  this,  and  the  light  of 
their  ancient  candour,  shining  from  so  far  back,  had 
seemed  to  bring  out  some  things  so  strangely  that, 
with  the  sharpness  of  the  vision,  she  had  risen  to  her 
feet.  "Well,  with  a  'life'  Fawns  will  certainly  do." 
He  had  remained  in  his  place  while  she  looked  over 
his  head;  the  picture,  in  her  vision,  had  suddenly 
swarmed.  The  vibration  was  that  of  one  of  the 
lurches  of  the  mystic  train  in  which,  with  her  com 
panion,  she  was  travelling;  but  she  was  having  to 
steady  herself,  this  time,  before  meeting  his  eyes.  She 
had  measured  indeed  the  full  difference  between  the 
move  to  Fawns  because  each  of  them  now  knew  the 
others  wanted  it  and  the  pairing-off,  for  a  journey,  of 

98 


THE   PRINCESS 

her  husband  and  her  father,  which  nobody  knew  that 
either  wanted.  "More  company"  at  Fawns  would  be 
effectually  enough  the  key  in  which  her  husband  and 
her  stepmother  were  at  work ;  there  was  truly  no  ques 
tion  but  that  she  and  her  father  must  accept  any  array 
of  visitors.  No  one  could  try  to  marry  him  now. 
What  he  had  just  said  was  a  direct  plea  for  that,  and 
what  was  the  plea  itself  but  an  act  of  submission  to 
Charlotte?  He  had,  from  his  chair,  been  noting  her 
look,  but  he  had,  the  next  minute,  also  risen,  and  then 
it  was  they  had  reminded  each  other  of  their  having 
come  out  for  the  boy.  Their  junction  with  him  and 
with  his  companion  successfully  effected,  the  four  had 
moved  home  more  slowly,  and  still  more  vaguely ;  yet 
with  a  vagueness  that  permitted  of  Maggie's  reverting 
an  instant  to  the  larger  issue.  "If  we  have  people  in 
the  country  then,  as  you  were  saying,  do  you  know  for 
whom  my  first  fancy  would  be  ?  You  may  be  amused, 
but  it  would  be  for  the  Castledeans." 

"I  see.    But  why  should  I  be  amused  ?" 

"Well,  I  mean  I  am  myself.  I  don't  think  I  like  her 
— and  yet  I  like  to  see  her:  which,  as  Amerigo  says, 
is  'rum.'  " 

"But  don't  you  feel  she's  very  handsome?"  her 
father  inquired. 

"Yes,  but  it  isn't  for  that." 

"Then  what  is  it  for?" 

"Simply  that  she  may  be  there — just  there  before  us. 
It's  as  if  she  may  have  a  value — as  if  something  may 
come  of  her.  I  don't  in  the  least  know  what,  and  she 
rather  irritates  me  meanwhile.  I  don't  even  know,  I 

99 


THE  GOLDEN  BOWL 

admit,  why — but  if  we  see  her  often  enough  I  may  find 
out." 

"Does  it  matter  so  very  much?"  her  companion  had 
asked  while  they  moved  together. 

She  had  hesitated.  "You  mean  because  you  do 
rather  like  her  ?" 

He  on  his  side  too  had  waited  a  little,  but  then  he 
had  taken  it  from  her.  "Yes,  I  guess  1  do  rather  like 
her." 

Which  she  accepted  for  the  first  case  she  could  recall 
of  their  not  being  affected  by  a  person  in  the  same 
way.  It  came  back  therefore  to  his  pretending;  but 
she  had  gone  far  enough,  and  to  add  to  her  appearance 
of  levity  she  further  observed  that,  though  they  were 
so  far  from  a  novelty,  she  should  also  immediately  de 
sire,  at  Fawns,  the  presence  of  the  Assinghams.  That 
put  everything  on  a  basis  independent  of  explanations ; 
yet  it  was  extraordinary,  at  the  same  time,  how  much, 
once  in  the  country  again  with  the  others,  she  was  go 
ing,  as  they  used  to  say  at  home,  to  need  the  presence 
of  the  good  Fanny.  It  was  the  strangest  thing  in  the 
world,  but  it  was  as  if  Mrs.  Assingham  might  in  a 
manner  mitigate  the  intensity  of  her  consciousness 
of  Charlotte.  It  was  as  if  the  two  would  balance,  one 
against  the  other;  as  if  it  came  round  again  in  that 
fashion  to  her  idea  of  the  equilibrium.  It  would  be 
like  putting  this  friend  into  her  scale  to  make  weight — 
into  the  scale  with  her  father  and  herself.  Amerigo 
and  Charlotte  would  be  in  the  other ;  therefore  it  would 
take  the  three  of  them  to  keep  that  one  straight.  And 
as  this  played,  all  duskily,  in  her  mind  it  had  received 

100 


THE   PRINCESS 

from  her  father,  with  a  sound  of  suddenness,  a  lumi 
nous  contribution.  "Ah,  rather!  Do  let's  have  the 
Assinghams." 

"It  would  be  to  have  them,"  she  had  said,  "as  we 
used  so  much  to  have  them.  For  a  good  long  stay,  in 
the  old  way  and  on  the  old  terms :  'as  regular  boarders' 
Fanny  used  to  call  it.  That  is  if  they'll  come." 

"As  regular  boarders,  on  the  old  terms — that's  what 
I  should  like  too.  But  I  guess  they'll  come,"  her  com 
panion  had  added  in  a  tone  into  which  she  had  read 
meanings.  The  main  meaning  was  that  he  felt  he 
was  going  to  require  them  quite  as  much  as  she  was. 
His  recognition  of  the  new  terms  as  different  from  the 
old,  what  was  that,  practically,  but  a  confession  that 
something  had  happened,  and  a  perception  that,  in 
terested  in  the  situation  she  had  helped  to  create,  Mrs. 
Assingham  would  be,  by  so  much  as  this,  con 
cerned  in  its  inevitable  development?  It  amounted  to 
an  intimation,  off  his  guard,  that  he  should  be  thankful 
for  some  one  to  turn  to.  If  she  had  wished  covertly 
to  sound  him  he  had  now,  in  short,  quite  given  himself 
away,  and  if  she  had,  even  at  the  start,  needed  any 
thing  more  to  settle  her,  here  assuredly  was  enough. 
He  had  hold  of  his  small  grandchild  as  they  re 
traced  their  steps,  swinging  the  boy's  hand  and  not 
bored,  as  he  never  was,  by  his  always  bristling, 
like  a  fat  little  porcupine,  with  shrill  interroga 
tion-points — so  that,  secretly,  while  they  went,  she 
had  wondered  again  if  the  equilibrium  mightn't  have 
been  more  real,  mightn't  above  all  have  demanded 
less  strange  a  study,  had  it  only  been  on  the  books 

101 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

that  Charlotte  should  give  him  a  Principino  of  his 
own.  She  had  repossessed  herself  now  of  his  other 
arm,  only  this  time  she  was  drawing  him  back, 
gently,  helplessly  back,  to  what  they  had  tried,  for  the 
hour,  to  get  away  from — just  as  he  was  consciously 
drawing  the  child,  and  as  high  Miss  Bogle  on  her  left, 
representing  the  duties  of  home,  was  complacently 
drawing  her.  The  duties  of  home,  when  the  house  in 
Portland  Place  reappeared,  showed,  even  from  a  dis 
tance,  as  vividly  there  before  them.  Amerigo  and 
Charlotte  had  come  in — that  is  Amerigo  had,  Char 
lotte,  rather,  having  come  out — and  the  pair  were 
perched  together  in  the  balcony,  he  bare-headed,  she 
divested  of  her  jacket,  her  mantle,  or  whatever,  but 
crowned  with  a  brilliant  brave  hat,  responsive  to  the 
balmy  day,  which  Maggie  immediately  "spotted"  as 
new,  as  insuperably  original,  as  worn,  in  characteristic 
generous  harmony,  for  the  first  time;  all,  evidently, 
to  watch  for  the  return  of  the  absent,  to  be  there  to 
take  them  over  again  as  punctually  as  possible.  They 
were  gay,  they  were  amused,  in  the  pleasant  morning; 
they  leaned  across  the  rail  and  called  down  their  greet 
ing,  lighting  up  the  front  of  the  great  black  house  with 
an  expression  that  quite  broke  the  monotony,  that 
might  almost  have  shocked  the  decency,  of  Portland 
Place.  The  group  on  the  pavement  stared  up  as  at  the 
peopled  battlements  of  a  castle ;  even  Miss  Bogle,  who 
carried  her  head  most  aloft,  gaped  a  little,  through  the 
interval  of  space,  as  toward  truly  superior  beings. 
There  could  scarce  have  been  so  much  of  the  open 
mouth  since  the  dingy  waits,  on  Christmas  Eve,  had  so 

1 02 


THE  PRINCESS 

lamentably  chanted  for  pennies — the  time  when  Ameri 
go,  insatiable  for  English  customs,  had  come  out,  with 
a  gasped  "Santissima  Vergine!"  to  marvel  at  the  de 
positaries  of  this  tradition  and  purchase  a  reprieve. 
Maggie's  individual  gape  was  inevitably  again  for  the 
thought  of  how  the  pair  would  be  at  work. 


103 


XXX 

SHE  had  not  again,  for  weeks,  had  Mrs.  Assingham 
so  effectually  in  presence  as  on  the  afternoon  of  that 
lady's  return  from  the  Easter  party  at  Matcham;  but 
the  intermission  was  made  up  as  soon  as  the  date  of  the 
migration  to  Fawns — that  of  the  more  or  less  simul 
taneous  adjournment  of  the  two  houses — began  to  be 
discussed.  It  had  struck  her,  promptly,  that  this  re 
newal,  with  an  old  friend,  of  the  old  terms  she  had 
talked  of  with  her  father,  was  the  one  opening,  for  her 
spirit,  that  wouldn't  too  much  advertise  or  betray  her. 
Even  her  father,  who  had  always,  as  he  would  have 
said,  "believed  in"  their  ancient  ally,  wouldn't  neces 
sarily  suspect  her  of  invoking  Fanny's  aid  toward  any 
special  inquiry — and  least  of  all  if  Fanny  would  only 
act  as  Fanny  so  easily  might.  Maggie's  measure  of 
Fanny's  ease  would  have  been  agitating  to  Mrs.  As- 
singham  had  it  been  all  at  once  revealed  to  her — as, 
for  that  matter,  it  was  soon  destined  to  become  even 
on  a  comparatively  graduated  showing.  Our  young 
woman's  idea,  in  particular,  was  that  her  safety,  her 
escape  from  being  herself  suspected  of  suspicion, 
would  proceed  from  this  friend's  power  to  cover,  to 
protect  and,  as  might  be,  even  showily  to  represent  her 
— represent,  that  is,  her  relation  to  the  form  of  the  life 

104 


THE  PRINCESS 

they  were  all  actually  leading.  This  would  doubtless 
be,  as  people  said,  a  large  order ;  but  that  Mrs.  Assing- 
ham  existed,  substantially,  or  could  somehow  be  made 
prevailingly  to  exist,  for  her  private  benefit,  was  the 
finest  flower  Maggie  had  plucked  from  among  the  sug 
gestions  sown,  like  abundant  seed,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  entertainment  offered  in  Portland  Place  to  the 
Matcham  company.  Mrs.  Assingham,  that  night,  re 
bounding  from  dejection,  had  bristled  with  bravery 
and  sympathy;  she  had  then  absolutely,  she  had  per 
haps  recklessly,  for  herself,  betrayed  the  deeper  and 
darker  consciousness — an  impression  it  would  now  be 
late  for  her  inconsistently  to  attempt  to  undo.  It  was 
with  a  wonderful  air  of  giving  out  all  these  truths  that 
the  Princess  at  present  approached  her  again;  making 
doubtless  at  first  a  sufficient  scruple  of  letting  her  know 
what  in  especial  she  asked  of  her,  yet  not  a  bit  ashamed, 
as  she  in  fact  quite  expressly  declared,  of  Fanny's  dis 
cerned  foreboding  of  the  strange  uses  she  might  per 
haps  have  for  her.  Quite  from  the  first,  really,  Mag 
gie  said  extraordinary  things  to  her,  such  as  "You  can 
help  me,  you  know,  my  dear,  when  nobody  else  can;" 
such  as  "I  almost  wish,  upon  my  word,  that  you  had 
something  the  matter  with  you,  that  you  had  lost  your 
health,  or  your  money,  or  your  reputation  (forgive  me, 
love!)  so  that  I  might  be  with  you  as  much  as  I  want, 
or  keep  you  with  me,  without  exciting  comment,  with 
out  exciting  any  other  remark  than  that  such  kind 
nesses  are  'like'  me."  We  have  each  our  own  way  of 
making  up  for  our  unselfishness,  and  Maggie,  who  had 
no  small  self  at  all  as  against  her  husband  or  her  father, 

105 


THE  GOLDEN    BOWL 

and  only  a  weak  and  uncertain  one  as  against  her  step 
mother,  would  verily,  at  this  crisis,  have  seen  Mrs.  As- 
singham's  personal  life  or  liberty  sacrificed  without  a 
pang. 

The  attitude  that  the  appetite  in  question  maintained 
in  her  was  to  draw  peculiar  support  moreover  from  the 
current  aspects  and  agitations  of  her  victim.  This 
personage  struck  her,  in  truth,  as  ready  for  almost  any 
thing;  as  not  perhaps  effusively  protesting,  yet  as 
wanting  with  a  restlessness  of  her  own  to  know  what 
she  wanted.  And  in  the  long  run — which  was  none 
so  long  either — there  was  to  be  no  difficulty,  as  hap 
pened,  about  that.  It  was  as  if,  for  all  the  world, 
Maggie  had  let  her  see  that  she  held  her,  that  she  made 
her,  fairly  responsible  for  something;  not,  to  begin 
with,  dotting  all  the  i's  nor  hooking  together  all  the 
links,  but  treating  her,  without  insistence,  rather  with 
caressing  confidence,  as  there  to  see  and  to  know,  to 
advise  and  to  assist.  The  theory,  visibly,  had  patched 
itself  together  for  her  that  the  dear  woman  had  some 
how,  from  the  early  time,  had  a  hand  in  all  their  for 
tunes,  so  that  there  was  no  turn  of  their  common  re 
lations  and  affairs  that  couldn't  be  traced  back  in  some 
degree  to  her  original  affectionate  interest.  On  this 
affectionate  interest  the  good  lady's  young  friend  now 
built,  before  her  eyes — very  much  as  a  wise,  or  even  as 
a  mischievous,  child,  playing  on  the  floor,  might  pile 
up  blocks,  skilfully  and  dizzily,  with  an  eye  on  the  face 
of  a  covertly-watching  elder.  When  the  blocks  tum 
bled  down  they  but  acted  after  the  nature  of  blocks ;  yet 
the  hour  would  come  for  their  rising  so  high  that  the 

106 


THE   PRINCESS 

structure  would  have  to  be  noticed  and  admired.  Mrs. 
Assingham's  appearance  of  unreservedly  giving  herself 
involved  meanwhile,  on  her  own  side,  no  separate  rec 
ognitions  :  her  face  of  almost  anxious  attention  was 
directed  altogether  to  her  young  friend's  so  vivid  felic 
ity  ;  it  suggested  that  she  took  for  granted,  at  the  most, 
certain  vague  recent  enhancements  of  that  state.  If 
the  Princess  now,  more  than  before,  was  going  and 
going,  she  was  prompt  to  publish  that  she  beheld  her 
go,  that  she  had  always  known  she  would,  sooner  or 
later,  and  that  any  appeal  for  participation  must  more 
or  less  contain  and  invite  the  note  of  triumph.  There 
was  a  blankness  in  her  blandness,  assuredly,  and  very 
nearly  an  extravagance  in  her  generalising  gaiety;  a 
precipitation  of  cheer  particularly  marked  whenever 
they  met  again  after  short  separations:  meetings  dur 
ing  the  first  flush  of  which  Maggie  sometimes  felt  re 
minded  of  other  looks  in  other  faces ;  of  two  strangely 
unobliterated  impressions  above  all,  the  physiognomic 
light  that  had  played  out  in  her  husband  at  the  shock 
— she  had  come  at  last  to  talk  to  herself  of  the  "shock" 
— of  his  first  vision  of  her  on  his  return  from  Matcham 
and  Gloucester,  and  the  wonder  of  Charlotte's  beauti 
ful  bold  wavering  gaze  when,  the  next  morning  in 
Eaton  Square,  this  old  friend  had  turned  from  the 
window  to  begin  to  deal  with  her. 

If  she  had  dared  to  think  of  it  so  crudely  she  would 
have  said  that  Fanny  was  afraid  of  her,  afraid  of  some 
thing  she  might  say  or  do,  even  as,  for  their  few  brief 
seconds,  Amerigo  and  Charlotte  had  been — which 
made,  exactly,  an  expressive  element  common  to  the 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

three.  The  difference  however  was  that  this  look 
had  in  the  dear  woman  its  oddity  of  a  constant  renewal, 
whereas  it  had  never  for  the  least  little  instant  again 
peeped  out  of  the  others.  Other  looks,  other  lights, 
radiant  and  steady,  with  the  others,  had  taken  its  place, 
reaching  a  climax  so  short  a  time  ago,  that  morning 
of  the  appearance  of  the  pair  on  the  balcony  of  her 
house  to  overlook  what  she  had  been  doing  with  her 
father;  when  their  general  interested  brightness  and 
beauty,  attuned  to  the  outbreak  of  summer,  had  seemed 
to  shed  down  warmth  and  welcome  and  the  promise  of 
protection.  They  were  conjoined  not  to  do  anything 
to  startle  her — and  now  at  last  so  completely  that,  with 
experience  and  practice,  they  had  almost  ceased  to  fear 
their  liability.  Mrs.  Assingham,  on  the  other  hand, 
deprecating  such  an  accident  not  less,  had  yet  less  as 
surance,  as  having  less  control.  The  high  pitch  of 
her  cheer,  accordingly,  the  tentative,  adventurous  ex 
pressions,  of  the  would-be  smiling  order,  that  preceded 
her  approach  even  like  a  squad  of  skirmishers,  or  what 
ever  they  were  called,  moving  ahead  of  the  baggage 
train — these  things  had  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight 
brought  a  dozen  times  to  our  young  woman's  lips  a 
challenge  that  had  the  cunning  to  await  its  right  occa 
sion,  but  of  the  relief  of  which,  as  a  demonstration, 
she  meanwhile  felt  no  little  need.  "You've  such  a 
dread  of  my  possibly  complaining  to  you  that  you  keep 
pealing  all  the  bells  to  drown  my  voice;  but  don't  cry 
out,  my  dear,  till  you're  hurt — and  above  all  ask  your 
self  how  I  can  be  so  wicked  as  to  complain.  What  in 
the  name  of  all  that's  fantastic  can  you  dream  that  I 

1 08 


THE   PRINCESS 

have  to  complain  off"  Such  inquiries  the  Princess 
temporarily  succeeded  in  repressing,  and  she  did  so,  in 
a  measure,  by  the  aid  of  her  wondering  if  this  ambi 
guity  with  which  her  friend  affected  her  wouldn't  be  at 
present  a  good  deal  like  the  ambiguity  with  which  she 
herself  must  frequently  affect  her  father.  She  won 
dered  how  she  should  enjoy,  on  his  part,  such  a  take-up 
as  she  but  just  succeeded,  from  day  to  day,  in  sparing 
Mrs.  Assingham,  and  that  made  for  her  trying  to  be 
as  easy  with  this  associate  as  Mr.  Verver,  blessed  man, 
all  indulgent  but  all  inscrutable,  was  with  his  daughter. 
She  had  extracted  from  her,  none  the  less,  a  vow  in 
respect  to  the  time  that,  if  the  Colonel  might  be  de 
pended  on,  they  would  spend  at  Fawns;  and  nothing 
came  home  to  her  more,  in  this  connection,  or  inspired 
her  with  a  more  intimate  interest,  than  her  sense  of 
absolutely  seeing  her  interlocutress  forbear  to  observe 
that  Charlotte's  view  of  a  long  visit,  even  from  such 
allies,  was  there  to  be  reckoned  with. 

Fanny  stood  off  from  that  proposition  as  visibly  to 
the  Princess,  and  as  consciously  to  herself,  as  she  might 
have  backed  away  from  the  edge  of  a  chasm  into  which 
she  feared  to  slip;  a  truth  that  contributed  again  to 
keep  before  our  young  woman  her  own  constant  danger 
of  advertising  her  subtle  processes.  That  Charlotte 
should  have  begun  to  be  restrictive  about  the  Assing- 
hams — which  she  had  never,  and  for  a  hundred  obvi 
ously  good  reasons,  been  before — this  in  itself  was  a 
fact  of  the  highest  value  for  Maggie,  and  of  a  value 
enhanced  by  the  silence  in  which  Fanny  herself  so  much 
too  unmistakably  dressed  it.  What  gave  it  quite 

109 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

thrillingly  its  price  was  exactly  the  circumstance  that 
it  thus  opposed  her  to  her  stepmother  more  actively — 
if  she  was  to  back  up  her  friends  for  holding  out — 
than  she  had  ever  yet  been  opposed ;  though  of  course 
with  the  involved  result  of  the  fine  chance  given  Mrs. 
Verver  to  ask  her  husband  for  explanations.  Ah,  from 
the  moment  she  should  be  definitely  caught  in  opposi 
tion  there  would  be  naturally  no  saying  how  much 
Charlotte's  opportunities  might  multiply!  What 
would  become  of  her  father,  she  hauntedly  asked,  if  his 
wife,  on  the  one  side,  should  begin  to  press  him  to  call 
his  daughter  to  order,  and  the  force  of  old  habit — to 
put  it  only  at  that — should  dispose  him,  not  less  effec 
tively,  to  believe  in  this  young  person  at  any  price? 
There  she  was,  all  round,  imprisoned  in  the  circle  of 
the  reasons  it  was  impossible  she  should  give — cer 
tainly  give  him.  The  house  in  the  country  was  his 
house,  and  thereby  was  Charlotte's ;  it  was  her  own  and 
Amerigo's  only  so  far  as  its  proper  master  and  mistress 
should  profusely  place  it  at  their  disposal.  Maggie 
felt  of  course  that  she  saw  no  limit  to  her  father's  pro 
fusion,  but  this  couldn't  be  even  at  the  best  the  case 
with  Charlotte's,  whom  it  would  never  be  decent,  when 
all  was  said,  to  reduce  to  fighting  for  her  preferences. 
There  were  hours,  truly,  when  the  Princess  saw  her 
self  as  not  unarmed  for  battle  if  battle  might  only  take 
place  without  spectators. 

This  last  advantage  for  her,  was,  however,  too  sadly 
out  of  the  question ;  her  sole  strength  lay  in  her  being 
able  to  see  that  if  Charlotte  wouldn't  "want"  the  As- 
singhams  it  would  be  because  that  sentiment  too  would 

no 


THE   PRINCESS 

have  motives  and  grounds.  She  had  all  the  while 
command  of  one  way  of  meeting  any  objection,  any 
complaint,  on  his  wife's  part,  reported  to  her  by  her 
father ;  it  would  be  open  to  her  to  retort  to  his  possible 
"What  are  your  reasons,  my  dear?"  by  a  lucidly-pro 
duced  "What  are  hers,  love,  please? — isn't  that  what 
we  had  better  know  ?  Mayn't  her  reasons  be  a  dislike, 
beautifully  founded,  of  the  presence,  and  thereby  of 
the  observation,  of  persons  who  perhaps  know  about 
her  things  it's  inconvenient  to  her  they  should  know  ?" 
That  hideous  card  she  might  in  mere  logic  play — being 
by  this  time,  at  her  still  swifter  private  pace,  intimately 
familiar  with  all  the  fingered  pasteboard  in  her  pack. 
But  she  could  play  it  only  on  the  forbidden  issue  of 
sacrificing  him ;  the  issue  so  forbidden  that  it  involved 
even  a  horror  of  finding  out  if  he  would  really  have 
consented  to  be  sacrificed.  What  she  must  do  she 
must  do  by  keeping  her  hands  off  him;  and  nothing 
meanwhile,  as  we  see,  had  less  in  common  with  that 
scruple  than  such  a  merciless  manipulation  of  their 
yielding  beneficiaries  as  her  spirit  so  boldly  revelled  in. 
She  saw  herself,  in  this  connexion,  without  detach 
ment — saw  others  alone  with  intensity;  otherwise  she 
might  have  been  struck,  fairly  have  been  amused,  by 
her  free  assignment  of  the  pachydermatous  quality.  If 
she  could  face  the  awkwardness  of  the  persistence  of 
her  friends  at  Fawns  in  spite  of  Charlotte,  she  some 
how  looked  to  them  for  an  inspiration  of  courage  that 
would  improve  upon  her  own.  They  were  in  short 
not  only  themselves  to  find  a  plausibility  and  an  audac 
ity,  but  were  somehow  by  the  way  to  pick  up  these 

in 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

forms  for  her,  Maggie,  as  well.  And  she  felt  indeed 
that  she  was  giving  them  scant  time  longer  when,  one 
afternoon  in  Portland  Place,  she  broke  out  with  an 
irrelevance  that  was  merely  superficial. 

"What  awfulness,  in  heaven's  name,  is  there  between 
them?  What  do  you  believe,  what  do  you  know?" 

Oh,  if  she  went  by  faces  her  visitor's  sudden  white 
ness,  at  this,  might  have  carried  her  far !  Fanny  As- 
singham  turned  pale  for  it,  but  there  was  something 
in  such  an  appearance,  in  the  look  it  put  into  the  eyes, 
that  renewed  Maggie's  conviction  of  what  this  com 
panion  had  been  expecting.  She  had  been  watching 
it  come,  come  from  afar,  and  now  that  it  was  there, 
after  all,  and  the  first  convulsion  over,  they  would 
doubtless  soon  find  themselves  in  a  more  real  relation. 
It  was  there  because  of  the  Sunday  luncheon  they  had 
partaken  of  alone  together;  it  was  there,  as  strangely 
as  one  would,  because  of  the  bad  weather,  the  cold  per 
verse  June  rain,  that  was  making  the  day  wrong;  it 
was  there  because  it  stood  for  the  whole  sum  of  the 
perplexities  and  duplicities  among  which  our  young 
woman  felt  herself  lately  to  have  picked  her  steps;  it 
was  there  because  Amerigo  and  Charlotte  were  again 
paying  together  alone  a  "week  end"  visit  which  it  had 
been  Maggie's  plan  infernally  to  promote — just  to  see 
if,  this  time,  they  really  would ;  it  was  there  because 
she  had  kept  Fanny,  on  her  side,  from  paying  one  she 
would  manifestly  have  been  glad  to  pay,  and  had  made 
her  come  instead,  stupidly,  vacantly,  boringly,  to  lunch 
eon  :  all  in  the  spirit  of  celebrating  the  fact  that  the 
Prince  and  Mrs.  Verver  had  thus  put  it  into  her  own 


THE  PRINCESS 

power  to  describe  them  exactly  as  they  were.  It  had 
abruptly  occurred,  in  truth,  that  Maggie  required  the 
preliminary  help  of  determining  how  they  were; 
though,  on  the  other  hand,  before  her  guest  had  an 
swered  her  question  everything  in  the  hour  and  the 
place,  everything  in  all  the  conditions,  affected  her  as 
crying  it  out.  Her  guest's  stare  of  ignorance,  above 
all — that  of  itself  at  first  cried  it  out.  "  'Between 
them  ?'  What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"Anything  there  shouldn't  be,  there  shouldn't  have 
been — all  this  time.  Do  you  believe  there  is — or 
what's  your  idea?" 

Fanny's  idea  was  clearly,  to  begin  with,  that  her 
young  friend  had  taken  her  breath  away;  but  she 
looked  at  her  very  straight  and  very  hard.  "Do  you 
speak  from  a  suspicion  of  your  own  ?" 

"I  speak,  at  last,  from  a  torment.  Forgive  me  if  it 
comes  out.  I've  been  thinking  for  months  and 
months,  and  I've  no  one  to  turn  to,  no  one  to  help  me 
to  make  things  out;  no  impression  but  my  own,  don't 
you  see  ?  to  go  by." 

"You've  been  thinking  for  months  and  months?" — 
Mrs.  Assingham  took  it  in.  "But  what  then,  dear 
Maggie,  have  you  been  thinking?" 

"Well,  horrible  things — like  a  little  beast  that  I  per 
haps  am.  That  there  may  be  something — something 
wrong  and  dreadful,  something  they  cover  up." 

The  elder  woman's  colour  had  begun  to  come  back ; 
she  was  able,  though  with  a  visible  effort,  to  face  the 
question   less  amazedly.     "You  imagine,   poor  child, 
that  the  wretches  are  in  love  ?     Is  that  it  ?" 
VOL.  II.— 8  113 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

But  Maggie  for  a  minute  only  stared  back  at  her. 
''Help  me  to  find  out  what  I  imagine.  I  don't  know— 
I've  nothing  but  my  perpetual  anxiety.  Have  you 
any? — do  you  see  what  I  mean?  If  you'll  tell  me 
truly,  that  at  least,  one  way  or  the  other,  will  do  some 
thing  for  me." 

Fanny's  look  had  taken  a  peculiar  gravity — a  fulness 
with  which  it  seemed  to  shine.  "Is  what  it  comes  to 
that  you're  jealous  of  Charlotte?" 

"Do  you  mean  whether  I  hate  her?" — and  Maggie 
thought.  "No;  not  on  account  of  father." 

"Ah,"  Mrs.  Assingham  returned,  "that  isn't  what 
one  would  suppose.  What  I  ask  is  if  you're  jealous 
on  account  of  your  husband." 

"Well,"  said  Maggie  presently,  "perhaps  that  may 
be  all.  If  I'm  unhappy  I'm  jealous;  it  must  come  to 
the  same  thing;  and  with  you,  at  least,  I'm  not  afraid 
of  the  word.  If  I'm  jealous,  don't  you  see?  I'm  tor 
mented,"  she  went  on — "and  all  the  more  if  I'm  help 
less.  And  if  I'm  both  helpless  and  tormented  I  stuff 
my  pocket-handkerchief  into  my  mouth,  I  keep  it  there, 
for  the  most  part,  night  and  day,  so  as  not  to  be  heard 
too  indecently  moaning.  Only  now,  with  you,  at  last, 
I  can't  keep  it  longer ;  I've  pulled  it  out,  and  here  I  am 
fairly  screaming  at  you.  They're  away,"  she  wound 
up,  "so  they  can't  hear;  and  I'm,  by  a  miracle  of  ar 
rangement,  not  at  luncheon  with  father  at  home.  I 
live  in  the  midst  of  miracles  of  arrangement,  half  of 
which  I  admit,  are  my  own;  I  go  about  on  tiptoe,  I 
watch  for  every  sound,  I  feel  every  breath,  and  yet  I 
try  all  the  while  to  seem  as  smooth  as  old  satin  dyed 

114 


THE  PRINCESS 

rose-colour.  Have  you  ever  thought  of  me,"  she 
asked,  "as  really  feeling  as  I  do?" 

Her  companion,  conspicuously,  required  to  be  clear. 

"Jealous,  unhappy,  tormented ?  No,"  said  Mrs. 

Assingham;  "but  at  the  same  time — and  though  you 
may  laugh  at  me  for  it! — I'm  bound  to  confess  that 
I've  never  been  so  awfully  sure  of  what  I  may  call 
knowing  you.  Here  you  are  indeed,  as  you  say — such 
a  deep  little  person!  I've  never  imagined  your  ex 
istence  poisoned,  and,  since  you  wish  to  know  if  I  con 
sider  that  it  need  be,  I've  not  the  least  difficulty  in 
speaking  on  the  spot.  Nothing,  decidedly,  strikes  me 
as  more  unnecessary." 

For  a  minute  after  this  they  remained  face  to  face; 
Maggie  had  sprung  up  while  her  friend  sat  enthroned, 
and,  after  moving  to  and  fro  in  her  intensity,  now 
paused  to  receive  the  light  she  had  invoked.  It  had 
accumulated,  considerably,  by  this  time,  round  Mrs. 
Assingham's  ample  presence,  and  it  made,  even  to  our 
young  woman's  own  sense,  a  medium  in  which  she 
could  at  last  take  a  deeper  breath.  "I've  affected  you, 
these  months — and  these  last  weeks  in  especial — as 
quiet  and  natural  and  easy?" 

But  it  was  a  question  that  took,  not  imperceptibly, 
some  answering.  "You've  never  affected  me,  from 
the  first  hour  I  beheld  you,  as  anything  but — in  a  way 
all  your  own — absolutely  good  and  sweet  and  beauti 
ful.  In  a  way,  as  I  say,"  Mrs.  Assingham  almost 
caressingly  repeated,  "just  all  your  very  own — no 
body  else's  at  all.  I've  never  thought  of  you  but  as 
outside  of  ugly  things,  so  ignorant  of  any  falsity  or 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

cruelty  or  vulgarity  as  never  to  have  to  be  touched  by 
them  or  to  touch  them.  I've  never  mixed  you  up  with 
them;  there  would  have  been  time  enough  for  that  if 
they  had  seemed  to  be  near  you.  But  they  haven't — 
if  that's  what  you  want  to  know." 

"You've  only  believed  me  contented  then  because 
you've  believed  me  stupid?" 

Mrs.  Assingham  had  a  free  smile,  now,  for  the 
length  of  this  stride,  dissimulated  though  it  might  be 
in  a  graceful  little  frisk.  "If  I  had  believed  you  stupid 
I  shouldn't  have  thought  you  interesting,  and  if  I 
hadn't  thought  you  interesting  I  shouldn't  have  noted 
whether  I  'knew'  you,  as  I've  called  it,  or  not. 
What  I've  always  been  conscious  of  is  your  having 
concealed  about  you  somewhere  no  small  amount 
of  character;  quite  as  much  in  fact,"  Fanny  smiled, 
"as  one  could  suppose  a  person  of  your  size  able 
to  carry.  The  only  thing  was,"  she  explained, 
"that  thanks  to  your  never  calling  one's  attention 
to  it,  I  hadn't  made  out  much  more  about  it,  and  should 
have  been  vague,  above  all,  as  to  where  you  carried  it 
or  kept  it.  Somewhere  under,  I  should  simply  have 
said — like  that  little  silver  cross  you  once  showed  me, 
blest  by  the  Holy  Father,  that  you  always  wear,  out 
of  sight,  next  your  skin.  That  relic  I've  had  a  glimpse 
of" — with  which  she  continued  to  invoke  the  privilege 
of  humour.  "But  the  precious  little  innermost,  say 
this  time  little  golden,  personal  nature  of  you — blest 
by  a  greater  power,  I  think,  even  than  the  Pope — that 
you've  never  consentingly  shown  me.  I'm  not  sure 

116 


THE  PRINCESS 

you've  ever  consentingly  shown  it  to  anyone.  You've 
been  in  general  too  modest." 

Maggie,  trying  to  follow,  almost  achieved  a  little 
fold  of  her  forehead.  "I  strike  you  as  modest  to-day 
— modest  when  I  stand  here  and  scream  at  you?" 

"Oh,  your  screaming,  I've  granted  you,  is  something 
new.  I  must  fit  it  on  somewhere.  The  question  is, 
however,"  Mrs.  Assingham  further  proceeded,  "of 
what  the  deuce  I  can  fit  it  on  to.  Do  you  mean,"  she 
asked,  "to  the  fact  of  our  friends'  being,  from  yester 
day  to  to-morrow,  at  a  place  where  they  may  more  or 
less  irresponsibly  meet?"  She  spoke  with  the  air  of 
putting  it  as  badly  for  them  as  possible.  "Are  you 
thinking  of  their  being  there  alone — of  their  having 
consented  to  be?"  And  then  as  she  had  waited  with 
out  result  for  her  companion  to  say :  "But  isn't  it  true 
that — after  you  had  this  time  again,  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  said  you  wouldn't — they  would  really  much 
rather  not  have  gone  ?" 

"Yes — they  would  certainly  much  rather  not  have 
gone.  But  I  wanted  them  to  go." 

"Then,  my  dear  child,  what  in  the  world  is  the  mat 
ter?" 

"I  wanted  to  see  if  they  would.  And  they've  had 
to,"  Maggie  added.  "It  was  the  only  thing." 

Her  friend  appeared  to  wonder.  "From  the  mo 
ment  you  and  your  father  backed  out?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  go  for  those  people;  I  mean  go 
for  us.  For  father  and  me,"  Maggie  went  on. 
"Because  now  they  know." 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"They  'know'  ?"  Fanny  Assingham  quavered. 

"That  I've  been  for  some  time  past  taking  more 
notice.  Notice  of  the  queer  things  in  our  life." 

Maggie  saw  her  companion  for  an  instant  on  the 
point  of  asking  her  what  these  queer  things  might  be ; 
'  but  Mrs.  Assingham  had  the  next  minute  brushed  by 
that  ambiguous  opening  and  taken,  as  she  evidently 
felt,  a  better  one.  "And  is  it  for  that  you  did  it  ?  I 
mean  gave  up  the  visit." 

"It's  for  that  I  did  it.  To  leave  them  to  themselves 
— as  they  less  and  less  want,  or  at  any  rate  less  and  less 
venture  to  appear  to  want,  to  be  left.  As  they  had  for 
so  long  arranged  things,"  the  Princess  went  on,  "you 
see  they  sometimes  have  to  be."  And  then,  as  if 
baffled  by  the  lucidity  of  this,  Mrs.  Assingham  for 
a  little  said  nothing:  "Now  do  you  think  I'm 
modest?" 

With  time,  however,  Fanny  could  brilliantly  think 
anything  that  would  serve.  "I  think  you're  wrong. 
That,  my  dear,  is  my  answer  to  your  question.  It  de 
mands  assuredly  the  straightest  I  can  make.  I  see  no 
'awfulness' — I  suspect  none.  I'm  deeply  distressed," 
she  added,  "that  you  should  do  anything  else." 

It  drew  again  from  Maggie  a  long  look.  "You've 
never  even  imagined  anything?" 

"Ah,  God  forbid! — for  it's  exactly  as  a  woman  of 
imagination  that  I  speak.  There's  no  moment  of  my 
life  at  which  I'm  not  imagining  something;  and  it's 
thanks  to  that,  darling,"  Mrs.  Assingham  pursued, 
"that  I  figure  the  sincerity  with  which  your  husband, 
whom  you  see  as  viciously  occupied  with  your  step- 

118 


THE   PRINCESS 

mother,  is  interested,  is  tenderly  interested,  in  his  ad 
mirable,  adorable  wife."  She  paused  a  minute  as  to 
give  her  friend  the  full  benefit  of  this — as  to  Maggie's 
measure  of  which,  however,  no  sign  came;  and  then, 
poor  woman,  haplessly,  she  crowned  her  effort.  "He 
wouldn't  hurt  a  hair  of  your  head." 

It  had  produced  in  Maggie,  at  once,  and  apparently 
in  the  intended  form  of  a  smile,  the  most  extraordi 
nary  expression.  "Ah,  there  it  is !" 

But  her  guest  had  already  gone  on.  "And  I'm  ab 
solutely  certain  that  Charlotte  wouldn't  either." 

It  kept  the  Princess,  with  her  strange  grimace, 
standing  there.  "No — Charlotte  wouldn't  either. 
That's  how  they've  had  again  to  go  off  together. 
They've  been  afraid  not  to — lest  it  should  disturb  me, 
aggravate  me,  somehow  work  upon  me.  As  I  insisted 
that  they  must,  that  we  couldn't  all  fail — though  father 
and  Charlotte  hadn't  really  accepted ;  as  I  did  this  they 
had  to  yield  to  the  fear  that  their  showing  as  afraid 
to  move  together  would  count  for  them  as  the  greater 
danger:  which  would  be  the  danger,  you  see,  of  my 
feeling  myself  wronged.  Their  least  danger,  they 
know,  is  in  going  on  with  all  the  things  that  I've 
seemed  to  accept  and  that  I've  given  no  indication,  at 
any  moment,  of  not  accepting.  Everything  that  has 
come  up  for  them  has  come  up,  in  an  extraordinary 
manner,  without  my  having  by  a  sound  or  a  sign 
given  myself  away — so  that  it's  all  as  wonderful  as 
you  may  conceive.  They  move  at  any  rate  among  the 
dangers  I  speak  of — between  that  of  their  doing  too 
much  and  that  of  their  not  having  any  longer  the  con- 

119 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

fidence,  or  the  nerve,  or  whatever  you  may  call  it,  to 
do  enough."  Her  tone,  by  this  time,  might  have 
shown  a  strangeness  to  match  her  smile;  which  was 
still  more  marked  as  she  wound  up.  "And  that's  how 
I  make  them  do  what  I  like!" 

It  had  an  effect  on  Mrs.  Assingham,  who  rose  with 
the  deliberation  that,  from  point  to  point,  marked  the 
widening  of  her  grasp.  "My  dear  child,  you're  amaz- 
ing." 

"Amazing ?" 

"You're  terrible." 

Maggie  thoughtfully  shook  her  head.  "No;  I'm 
not  terrible,  and  you  don't  think  me  so.  I  do  strike 
you  as  surprising,  no  doubt — but  surprisingly  mild. 
Because — don't  you  see  ? — I  am  mild.  I  can  bear  any 
thing." 

"Oh,  'bear' !"  Mrs.  Assingham  fluted. 

"For  love,"  said  the  Princess. 

Fanny  hesitated.     "Of  your  father?" 

"For  love,"  Maggie  repeated. 

It  kept  her  friend  watching.  "Of  your  hus 
band?" 

"For  love,"  Maggie  said  again. 

It  was,  for  the  moment,  as  if  the  distinctness  of  this 
might  have  determined  in  her  companion  a  choice 
between  two  or  three  highly  different  alternatives. 
Mrs.  Assingham's  rejoinder,  at  all  events — however 
much  or  however  little  it  was  a  choice — was  presently 
a  triumph.  "Speaking  with  this  love  of  your  own 
then,  have  you  undertaken  to  convey  to  me  that  you 
believe  your  husband  and  your  father's  wife  to  be  in 

1 20 


THE   PRINCESS 

act  and  in  fact  lovers  of  each  other?"  And  then  as 
the  Princess  didn't  at  first  answer :  "Do  you  call  such 
an  allegation  as  that  'mild'?" 

"Oh,  I'm  not  pretending  to  be  mild  to  you.  But 
I've  told  you,  and  moreover  you  must  have  seen  for 
yourself,  how  much  so  I've  been  to  them." 

Mrs.  Assingham,  more  brightly  again,  bridled.  "Is 
that  what  you  call  it  when  you  make  them,  for  terror 
as  you  say,  do  as  you  like?" 

"Ah,  there  wouldn't  be  any  terror  for  them  if  they 
had  nothing  to  hide." 

Mrs.  Assingham  faced  her — quite  steady  now. 
"Are  you  really  conscious,  love,  of  what  you're  say- 
ing?" 

"I'm  saying  that  I'm  bewildered  and  tormented,  and 
that  I've  no  one  but  you  to  speak  to.  I've  thought, 
I've  in  fact  been  sure,  that  you've  seen  for  yourself 
how  much  this  is  the  case.  It's  why  I've  believed  you 
would  meet  me  half  way." 

"Half  way  to  what?  To  denouncing,"  Fanny 
asked,  "two  persons,  friends  of  years,  whom  I've 
always  immensely  admired  and  liked,  and  against 
whom  I  haven't  the  shadow  of  a  charge  to  make?" 

Maggie  looked  at  her  with  wide  eyes.  "I  had  much 
rather  you  should  denounce  me  than  denounce  them. 
Denounce  me,  denounce  me,"  she  said,  "if  you  can  see 
your  way."  It  was  exactly  what  she  appeared  to  have 
argued  out  with  herself.  "If,  conscientiously,  you  can 
denounce  me;  if,  conscientiously,  you  can  revile  me;  if, 
conscientiously,  you  can  put  me  in  my  place  for  a  low- 
minded  little  pig !" 

121 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

"Well  ?"  said  Mrs.  Assingham,  consideringly,  as  she 
paused  for  emphasis. 

"I  think  I  shall  be  saved." 

Her  friend  took  it,  for  a  minute,  however,  by  carry 
ing  thoughtful  eyes,  eyes  verily  portentous,  over  her 
head.  "You  say  you've  no  one  to  speak  to,  and  you 
make  a  point  of  your  having  so  disguised  your  feelings 
— not  having,  as  you  call  it,  given  yourself  away. 
Have  you  then  never  seen  it  not  only  as  your  right, 
but  as  your  bounden  duty,  worked  up  to  such  a  pitch, 
to  speak  to  your  husband  ?" 

"I've  spoken  to  him,"  said  Maggie. 

Mrs.  Assingham  stared.  "Ah,  then  it  isn't  true 
that  you've  made  no  sign." 

Maggie  had  a  silence.  "I've  made  no  trouble. 
I've  made  no  scene.  I've  taken  no  stand.  I've 
neither  reproached  nor  accused  him.  You'll  say 
there's  a  way  in  all  that  of  being  nasty  enough." 

"Oh !"  dropped  from  Fanny  as  if  she  couldn't  help  it. 

"But  I  don't  think — strangely  enough — that  he  re 
gards  me  as  nasty.  I  think  that  at  bottom — for  that 
is,"  said  the  Princess,  "the  strangeness — he's  sorry  for 
me.  Yes,  I  think  that,  deep  within,  he  pities  me." 

Her  companion  wondered.  "For  the  state  you've 
let  yourself  get  into?" 

"For  not  being  happy  when  I've  so  much  to  make 
me  so." 

"You've  everything,"  said  Mrs.  Assingham  with 
alacrity.  Yet  she  remained  for  an  instant  embar 
rassed  as  to  a  further  advance.  "I  don't  understand, 

however,  how,  if  you've  done  nothing " 

122 


THE  PRINCESS 

An  impatience  from  Maggie  had  checked  her. 
"I've  not  done  absolutely  'nothing.' ' 

"But  what  then ?" 

"Well,"  she  went  on  after  a  minute,  "he  knows  what 
I've  done." 

It  produced  on  Mrs.  Assingham's  part,  her  whole 
tone  and  manner  exquisitely  aiding,  a  hush  not  less 
prolonged,  and  the  very  duration  of  which  inevitably 
gave  it  something  of  the  character  of  an  equal  recogni 
tion.  "And  what  then  has  he  done?" 

Maggie  took  again  a  minute.  "He  has  been  splen 
did." 

"'Splendid'?     Then  what  more  do  you  want?" 

"Ah,  what  you  see!"  said  Maggie.  "Not  to  be 
afraid." 

It  made  her  guest  again  hang  fire.  "Not  to  be 
afraid  really  to  speak?" 

"Not  to  be  afraid  not  to  speak." 

Mrs.  Assingham  considered  further.  "You  can't 
even  to  Charlotte?"  But  as,  at  this,  after  a  look  at 
her,  Maggie  turned  off  with  a  movement  of  suppressed 
despair,  she  checked  herself  and  might  have  been 
watching  her,  for  all  the  difficulty  and  the  pity  of  it, 
vaguely  moving  to  the  window  and  the  view  of  the 
dull  street.  It  was  almost  as  if  she  had  had  to  give 
up,  from  failure  of  responsive  wit  in  her  friend — the 
last  failure  she  had  feared — the  hope  of  the  particular 
relief  she  had  been  working  for.  Mrs.  Assingham  re 
sumed  the  next  instant,  however,  in  the  very  tone  that 
seemed  most  to  promise  her  she  should  have  to  give  up 
nothing.  "I  see,  I  see;  you  would  have  in  that  case 

123 


THE   GOLDEN    BOWL 

too  many  things  to  consider."  It  brought  the  Prin 
cess  round  again,  proving  itself  thus  the  note  of  com 
prehension  she  wished  most  to  clutch  at.  "Don't  be 
afraid." 

Maggie  took  it  where  she  stood — which  she  was 
soon  able  to  signify.  "Thank-you." 

It  very  properly  encouraged  her  counsellor.  "What 
your  idea  imputes  is  a  criminal  intrigue  carried  on, 
from  day  to  day,  amid  perfect  trust  and  sympathy,  not 
only  under  your  eyes,  but  under  your  father's.  That's 
an  idea  it's  impossible  for  me  for  a  moment  to  enter 
tain." 

"Ah,  there  you  are  then!  It's  exactly  what  I 
wanted  from  you." 

"You're  welcome  to  it!"  Mrs.  Assingham  breathed. 

"You  never  have  entertained  it?"  Maggie  pur 
sued. 

"Never  for  an  instant,"  said  Fanny  with  her  head 
very  high. 

Maggie  took  it  again,  yet  again  as  wanting  more. 
"Pardon  my  being  so  horrid.  But  by  all  you  hold 
sacred?" 

Mrs.  Assingham  faced  her.  "Ah,  my  dear,  upon 
my  positive  word  as  an  honest  woman." 

"Thank-you  then,"  said  the  Princess. 

So  they  remained  a  little;  after  which,  "But  do  you 
believe  it,  love?"  Fanny  inquired. 

"I  believe  you." 

"Well,  as  I've  faith  in  them,  it  comes  to  the  same 
thing." 

Maggie,  at  this  last,  appeared  for  a  moment  to  think 
124 


THE  PRINCESS 

again ;  but  she  embraced  the  proposition.  "The  same 
thing." 

"Then  you're  no  longer  unhappy  ?"  her  guest  urged, 
coming  more  gaily  toward  her. 

"I  doubtless  shan't  be  a  great  while." 

But  it  was  now  Mrs.  Assingham's  turn  to  want 
more.  "I've  convinced  you  it's  impossible?" 

She  had  held  out  her  arms,  and  Maggie,  after  a 
moment,  meeting  her,  threw  herself  into  them  with  a 
sound  that  had  its  oddity  as  a  sign  of  relief.  "Impos 
sible,  impossible,"  she  emphatically,  more  than  em 
phatically,  replied;  yet  the  next  minute  she  had  burst 
into  tears  over  the  impossibility,  and  a  few  seconds 
later,  pressing,  clinging,  sobbing,  had  even  caused 
them  to  flow,  audibly,  sympathetically  and  perversely, 
from  her  friend. 


125 


XXXI 

THE  understanding  appeared  to  have  come  to  be  that 
the  Colonel  and  his  wife  were  to  present  themselves 
toward  the  middle  of  July  for  the  "good  long  visit"  at 
Fawns  on  which  Maggie  had  obtained  from  her  father 
that  he  should  genially  insist ;  as  well  as  that  the  couple 
from  Eaton  Square  should  welcome  there  earlier  in  the 
month,  and  less  than  a  week  after  their  own  arrival, 
the  advent  of  the  couple  from  Portland  Place.  "Oh, 
we  shall  give  you  time  to  breathe!"  Fanny  remarked, 
in  reference  to  the  general  prospect,  with  a  gaiety  that 
announced  itself  as  heedless  of  criticism,  to  each  mem 
ber  of  the  party  in  turn ;  sustaining  and  bracing  herself 
by  her  emphasis,  pushed  even  to  an  amiable  cynicism, 
of  the  confident  view  of  these  punctualities  of  the  As- 
singhams.  The  ground  she  could  best  occupy,  to  her 
sense,  was  that  of  her  being  moved,  as  in  this  connex 
ion  she  had  always  been  moved,  by  the  admitted  gross- 
ness  of  her  avidity,  the  way  the  hospitality  of  the 
Ververs  met  her  convenience  and  ministered  to  her 
ease,  destitute  as  the  Colonel  had  kept  her,  from  the 
first,  of  any  rustic  retreat,  any  leafy  bower  of  her  own, 
any  fixed  base  for  the  stale  season  now  at  hand. 
She  had  explained  at  home,  she  had  repeatedly  re- 
explained,  the  terms  of  her  dilemma,  the  real  difficulty 
of  her,  or — as  she  now  put  it — of  their,  position. 

126 


THE  PRINCESS 

When  the  pair  could  do  nothing  else,  in  Cadogan 
Place,  they  could  still  talk  of  marvellous  little  Maggie, 
and  of  the  charm,  the  sinister  charm,  of  their  having 
to  hold  their  breath  to  watch  her;  a  topic  the  momen 
tous  midnight  discussion  at  which  we  have  been  pres 
ent  was  so  far  from  having  exhausted.  It  came  up, 
irrepressibly,  at  all  private  hours;  they  had  planted  it 
there  between  them,  and  it  grew,  from  day  to  day,  in 
a  manner  to  make  their  sense  of  responsibility  almost 
yield  to  their  sense  of  fascination.  Mrs.  Assingham 
declared  at  such  moments  that  in  the  interest  of  this 
admirable  young  thing — to  whom,  she  also  declared, 
she  had  quite  "come  over" — she  was  ready  to  pass  with 
all  the  world  else,  even  with  the  Prince  himself,  the 
object,  inconsequently,  as  well,  of  her  continued,  her 
explicitly  shameless  appreciation,  for  a  vulgar,  indeli 
cate,  pestilential  woman,  showing  her  true  character 
in  an  abandoned  old  age.  The  Colonel's  confessed  at 
tention  had  been  enlisted,  we  have  seen,  as  never  yet, 
under  pressure  from  his  wife,  by  any  guaranteed 
imbroglio ;  but  this,  she  could  assure  him  she  perfectly 
knew,  was  not  a  bit  because  he  was  sorry  for  her,  or 
touched  by  what  she  had  let  herself  in  for,  but  because, 
when  once  they  had  been  opened,  he  couldn't  keep  his 
eyes  from  resting  complacently,  resting  almost  intelli 
gently,  on  the  Princess.  If  he  was  in  love  with  her 
now,  however,  so  much  the  better ;  it  would  help  them 
both  not  to  wince  at  what  they  would  have  to  do  for 
her.  Mrs.  Assingham  had  come  back  to  that,  when 
ever  he  groaned  or  grunted;  she  had  at  no  beguiled 
moment — since  Maggie's  little  march  was  positively 

127 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

beguiling — let  him  lose  sight  of  the  grim  necessity 
awaiting  them.  "We  shall  have,  as  I've  again  and 
again  told  you,  to  lie  for  her — to  lie  till  we're  black  in 
the  face." 

"To  lie  'for'  her?"  The  Colonel  often,  at  these 
hours,  as  from  a  vague  vision  of  old  chivalry  in  a  new 
form,  wandered  into  apparent  lapses  from  lucidity. 

"To  lie  to  her,  up  and  down,  and  in  and  out — it 
comes  to  the  same  thing.  It  will  consist  just  as  much 
of  lying  to  the  others  too :  to  the  Prince  about  one's  be 
lief  in  him;  to  Charlotte  about  one's  belief  in  her;  to 
Mr.  Verver,  dear  sweet  man,  about  one's  belief  in 
everyone.  So  we've  work  cut  out — with  the  biggest 
lie,  on  top  of  all,  being  that  we  like  to  be  there  for  such 
a  purpose.  We  hate  it  unspeakably — I'm  more  ready 
to  be  a  coward  before  it,  to  let  the  whole  thing,  to  let 
everyone,  selfishly  and  pusillanimously  slide,  than  be 
fore  any  social  duty,  any  felt  human  call,  that  has  ever 
forced  me  to  be  decent.  I  speak  at  least  for  myself. 
For  you,"  she  had  added,  "as  I've  given  you  so  perfect 
an  opportunity  to  fall  in  love  with  Maggie,  you'll 
doubtless  find  your  account  in  being  so  much  nearer 
to  her." 

"And  what  do  you  make,"  the  Colonel  could,  at  this, 
always  imperturbably  enough  ask,  "of  the  account  you 
yourself  will  find  in  being  so  much  nearer  to  the 
Prince;  of  your  confirmed,  if  not  exasperated,  infatua 
tion  with  whom — to  say  nothing  of  my  weak  good 
nature  about  it — you  give  such  a  pretty  picture?" 

To  the  picture  in  question  she  had  been  always,  in 
fact,  able  contemplatively  to  return.  "The  difficulty  of 

128 


THE  PRINCESS 

my  enjoyment  of  that  is,  don't  you  see  ?  that  I'm  mak 
ing,  in  my  loyalty  to  Maggie,  a  sad  hash  of  his 
affection  for  me." 

"You  find  means  to  call  it  then,  this  whitewashing 
of  his  crime,  being  'loyal'  to  Maggie  ?" 

"Oh,  about  that  particular  crime  there  is  always 
much  to  say.  It  is  always  more  interesting  to  us  than 
any  other  crime;  it  has  at  least  that  for  it.  But  of 
course  I  call  everything  I  have  in  mind  at  all  being 
loyal  to  Maggie.  Being  loyal  to  her  is,  more  than 
anything  else,  helping  her  with  her  father — which  is 
what  she  most  wants  and  needs." 

The  Colonel  had  had  it  before,  but  he  could  appar 
ently  never  have  too  much  of  it.  "Helping  her  'with' 
him ?" 

"Helping  her  against  him  then.  Against  what  we've 
already  so  fully  talked  of — its  having  to  be  recognised 
between  them  that  he  doubts.  That's  where  my  part 
is  so  plain — to  see  her  through,  to  see  her  through  to 
the  end."  Exaltation,  for  the  moment,  always  lighted 
Mrs.  Assingham's  reference  to  this  plainness;  yet  she 
at  the  same  time  seldom  failed,  the  next  instant,  to 
qualify  her  view  of  it.  "When  I  talk  of  my  obligation 
as  clear  I  mean  that  it's  absolute;  for  just  how,  from 
day  to  day  and  through  thick  and  thin,  to  keep  the 
thing  up  is,  I  grant  you,  another  matter.  There's  one 
way,  luckily,  nevertheless,  in  which  I'm  strong.  I  can 
so  perfectly  count  on  her." 

The  Colonel  seldom  failed  here,  as  from  the  in 
sidious  growth  of  an  excitement,  to  wonder,  to  en 
courage.  "Not  to  see  you're  lying?" 

VOL.  II.— 9  129 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"To  stick  to  me  fast,  whatever  she  sees.  If  I  stick 
to  her — that  is  to  my  own  poor  struggling  way,  under 
providence,  of  watching  over  them  all — she'll  stand  by 
me  to  the  death.  She  won't  give  me  away.  For,  you 
know,  she  easily  can." 

This,  regularly,  was  the  most  lurid  turn  of  their 
road;  but  Bob  Assingham,  with  each  journey,  met  it 
as  for  the  first  time.  "Easily  ?" 

"She  can  utterly  dishonour  me  with  her  father.  She 
can  let  him  know  that  I  was  aware,  at  the  time  of  his 
marriage — as  I  had  been  aware  at  the  time  of  her  own 
— of  the  relations  that  had  pre-existed  between  his 
wife  and  her  husband." 

"And  how  can  she  do  so  if,  up  to  this  minute,  by 
your  own  statement,  she  is  herself  in  ignorance  of  your 
knowledge  ?" 

It  was  a  question  that  Mrs.  Assingham  had  ever, 
for  dealing  with,  a  manner  to  which  repeated  practice 
had  given  almost  a  grand  effect;  very  much  as  if  she 
was  invited  by  it  to  say  that  about  this,  exactly,  she 
proposed  to  do  her  best  lying.  But  she  said,  and  with 
full  lucidity,  something  quite  other :  it  could  give  itself 
a  little  the  air,  still,  of  a  triumph  over  his  coarseness. 
"By  acting,  immediately  with  the  blind  resentment 
with  which,  in  her  place,  ninety-nine  women  out  of  a 
hundred  would  act;  and  by  so  making  Mr.  Verver, 
in  turn,  act  with  the  same  natural  passion,  the  passion 
of  ninety-nine  men  out  of  a  hundred.  They've  only  to 
agree  about  me,"  the  poor  lady  said;  "they've  only  to 
feel  at  one  over  it,  feel  bitterly  practised  upon,  cheated 
and  injured;  they've  only  to  denounce  me  to  each  other 

130 


THE  PRINCESS 

as  false  and  infamous,  for  me  to  be  quite  irretrievably 
dished.  Of  course  it's  I  who  have  been,  and  who  con 
tinue  to  be,  cheated — cheated  by  the  Prince  and  Char 
lotte;  but  they're  not  obliged  to  give  me  the  benefit 
of  that,  or  to  give  either  of  us  the  benefit  of  anything. 
They'll  be  within  their  rights  to  lump  us  all  together 
as  a  false,  cruel,  conspiring  crew,  and,  if  they  can  find 
the  right  facts  to  support  them,  get  rid  of  us  root  and 
branch." 

This,  on  each  occasion,  put  the  matter  so  at  the 
worst  that  repetition  even  scarce  controlled  the  hot 
flush  with  which  she  was  compelled  to  see  the  parts 
of  the  whole  history,  all  its  ugly  consistency  and  its 
temporary  gloss,  hang  together.  She  enjoyed,  in 
variably,  the  sense  of  making  her  danger  present,  of 
making  it  real,  to  her  husband,  and  of  his  almost 
turning  pale,  when  their  eyes  met,  at  this  possibility 
of  their  compromised  state  and  their  shared  discredit. 
The  beauty  was  that,  as  under  a  touch  of  one  of  the 
ivory  notes  at  the  left  of  the  keyboard,  he  sounded  out 
with  the  short  sharpness  of  the  dear  fond  stupid  un 
easy  man.  "Conspiring — so  far  as  you  were  concerned 
— to  what  end?" 

"Why,  to  the  obvious  end  of  getting  the  Prince  a 
wife — at  Maggie's  expense.  And  then  to  that  of  get 
ting  Charlotte  a  husband  at  Mr.  Verver's." 

"Of  rendering  friendly  services,  yes — which  have 
produced,  as  it  turns  out,  complications.  But  from  the 
moment  you  didn't  do  it  for  the  complications,  why 
shouldn't  you  have  rendered  them?" 

It  was  extraordinary  for  her,  always,  in  this  con- 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

nexion,  how,  with  time  given  him,  he  fell  to  speaking 
better  for  her  than  she  could,  in  the  presence  of  her 
clear-cut  image  of  the  "worst,"  speak  for  herself. 
Troubled  as  she  was  she  thus  never  wholly  failed  of 
her  amusement  by  the  way.  "Oh,  isn't  what  I  may 
have  meddled  'for' — so  far  as  it  can  be  proved  I  did 
meddle — open  to  interpretation;  by  which  I  mean  to 
Mr.  Verver's  and  Maggie's  ?  Mayn't  they  see  my  mo 
tive,  in  the  light  of  that  appreciation,  as  the  wish  to 
be  decidedly  more  friendly  to  the  others  than  to  the 
victimised  father  and  daughter?"  She  positively  liked 
to  keep  it  up.  "Mayn't  they  see  my  motive  as  the  de 
termination  to  serve  the  Prince,  in  any  case,  and  at 
any  price,  first;  to  'place'  him  comfortably;  in  other 
words  to  find  him  his  fill  of  money  ?  Mayn't  it  have  all 
the  air  for  them  of  a  really  equivocal,  sinister  bargain 
between  us — something  quite  unholy  and  louche  ?" 

It  produced  in  the  poor  Colonel,  infallibly,  the  echo. 

"'Louche,'  love ?" 

"Why,  haven't  you  said  as  much  yourself  ? — haven't 
you  put  your  finger  on  that  awful -possibility?" 

She  had  a  way  now,  with  his  felicities,  that  made 
him  enjoy  being  reminded  of  them.  "In  speaking  of 
your  having  always  had  such  a  'mash' ?" 

"Such  a  mash,  precisely,  for  the  man  I  was  to  help 
to  put  so  splendidly  at  his  ease.  A  motherly  mash  an 
impartial  look  at  it  would  show  it  only  as  likely  to 
have  been — but  we're  not  talking,  of  course,  about  im 
partial  looks.  We're  talking  of  good  innocent  people 
deeply  worked  upon  by  a  horrid  discovery,  and  going 
much  further,  in  their  view  of  the  lurid,  as  such  people 

132 


THE  PRINCESS 

almost  always  do,  than  those  who  have  been  wider 
awake,  all  round,  from  the  first.  What  I  was  to  have 
got  from  my  friend,  in  such  a  view,  in  exchange  for 
what  I  had  been  able  to  do  for  him — well,  that  would 
have  been  an  equivalent,  of  a  kind  best  known  to 
myself,  for  me  shrewdly  to  consider."  And  she  easily 
lost  herself,  each  time,  in  the  anxious  satisfaction  of 
filling  out  the  picture.  "It  would  have  been  seen,  it 
would  have  been  heard  of,  before,  the  case  of  the 
woman  a  man  doesn't  want,  or  of  whom  he's  tired, 
or  for  whom  he  has  no  use  but  such  uses,  and  who  is 
capable,  in  her  infatuation,  in  her  passion,  of  promoting 
his  interests  with  other  women  rather  than  lose  sight 
of  him,  lose  touch  of  him,  cease  to  have  to  do  with 
him  at  all.  Cela  s'est  vu,  my  dear ;  and  stranger  things 
still — as  I  needn't  tell  you!  Very  good  then,"  she 
wound  up;  "there  is  a  perfectly  possible  conception  of 
the  behaviour  of  your  sweet  wife;  since,  as  I  say, 
there's  no  imagination  so  lively,  once  it's  started,  as 
that  of  really  agitated  lambs.  Lions  are  nothing  to 
them,  for  lions  are  sophisticated,  are  biases,  are 
brought  up,  from  the  first,  to  prowling  and  mauling. 
It  does  give  us,  you'll  admit,  something  to  think  about. 
My  relief  is  luckily,  however,  in  what  I  finally  do 
think." 

He  was  well  enough  aware,  by  this  time,  of  what  she 
finally  did  think;  but  he  was  not  without  a  sense, 
again,  also  for  his  amusement  by  the  way.  It  would 
have  made  him,  for  a  spectator  of  these  passages  be 
tween  the  pair,  resemble  not  a  little  the  artless  child 
who  hears  his  favourite  story  told  for  the  twentieth 

133 


time  and  enjoys  it  exactly  because  he  knows  what  is 
next  to  happen.  "What  of  course  will  pull  them  up, 
if  they  turn  out  to  have  less  imagination  than  you  as 
sume,  is  the  profit  you  can  have  found  in  furthering 
Mrs.  Verver's  marriage.  You  weren't  at  least  in  love 
with  Charlotte." 

"Oh,"  Mrs.  Assingham,  at  this,  always  brought  out, 
"my  hand  in  that  is  easily  accounted  for  by  my  desire 
to  be  agreeable  to  him." 

"To  Mr.  Verver?" 

"To  the  Prince — by  preventing  her  in  that  way  from 
taking,  as  he  was  in  danger  of  seeing  her  do,  some 
husband  with  whom  he  wouldn't  be  able  to  open,  to 
keep  open,  so  large  an  account  as  with  his  father-in- 
law.  I've  brought  her  near  him,  kept  her  within  his 
reach,  as  she  could  never  have  remained  either  as  a 
single  woman  or  as  the  wife  of  a  different  man." 

"Kept  her,  on  that  sweet  construction,  to  be  his 
mistress  ?" 

"Kept  her,  on  that  sweet  construction,  to  be  his  mis 
tress."  She  brought  it  out  grandly — it  had  always  so, 
for  her  own  ear  as  well  as,  visibly,  for  her  husband's, 
its  effect.  "The  facilities  in  the  case,  thanks  to  the 
particular  conditions,  being  so  quite  ideal." 

"Down  even  to  the  facility  of  your  minding  every 
thing  so  little — from  your  own  point  of  view — as  to 
have  supplied  him  with  the  enjoyment  of  two  beautiful 
women." 

"Down  even  to  that — to  the  monstrosity  of  my  folly. 
But  not,"  Mrs.  Assingham  added,  "  'two'  of  anything. 
One  beautiful  woman — and  one  beautiful  fortune. 

134 


THE  PRINCESS 

That's  what  a  creature  of  pure  virtue  exposes  herself 
to  when  she  suffers  her  pure  virtue,  suffers  her  sym 
pathy,  her  disinterestedness,  her  exquisite  sense  for 
the  lives  of  others,  to  carry  her  too  far.  Voila" 

"I  see.    It's  the  way  the  Ververs  have  you." 

"It's  the  way  the  Ververs  'have'  me.  It's  in  other 
words  the  way  they  would  be  able  to  make  such  a 
show  to  each  other  of  having  me — if  Maggie  weren't 
so  divine." 

"She  lets  you  off?"  He  never  failed  to  insist  on  all 
this  to  the  very  end;  which  was  how  he  had  become 
so  versed  in  what  she  finally  thought. 

"She  lets  me  off.  So  that  now,  horrified  and  con 
trite  at  what  I've  done,  I  may  work  to  help  her  out. 
And  Mr.  Verver,"  she  was  fond  of  adding,  "lets  me 
off  too." 

"Then  you  do  believe  he  knows?" 

It  determined  in  her  always,  there,  with  a  significant 
pause,  a  deep  immersion  in  her  thought.  "I  believe 
he  would  let  me  off  if  he  did  know — so  that  I  might 
work  to  help  him  out.  Or  rather,  really,"  she  went 
on,  "that  I  might  work  to  help  Maggie.  That  would 
be  his  motive,  that  would  be  his  condition,  in  forgiving 
me;  just  as  hers,  for  me,  in  fact,  her  motive  and  her 
condition,  are  my  acting  to  spare  her  father.  But  it's 
with  Maggie  only  that  I'm  directly  concerned ;  nothing, 
ever — not  a  breath,  not  a  look,  I'll  guarantee — shall  I 
have,  whatever  happens,  from  Mr.  Verver  himself. 
So  it  is,  therefore,  that  I  shall  probably,  by  the  closest 
possible  shave,  escape  the  penalty  of  my  crimes." 

"You  mean  being  held  responsible." 
135 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"I  mean  being  held  responsible.  My  advantage  will 
be  that  Maggie's  such  a  trump." 

"Such  a  trump  that,  as  you  say,  she'll  stick  to  you." 

"Stick  to  me,  on  our  understanding — stick  to  me. 
For  our  understanding's  signed  and  sealed."  And  to 
brood  over  it  again  was  ever,  for  Mrs.  Assingham,  to 
break  out  again  with  exaltation.  "It's  a  grand,  high 
compact.  She  has  solemnly  promised." 

"But  in  words ?" 

"Oh  yes,  in  words  enough — since  it's  a  matter  of 
words.  To  keep  up  her  lie  so  long  as  I  keep  up  mine." 

"And  what  do  you  call  'her'  lie?" 

"Why,  the  pretence  that  she  believes  me.  Believes 
they're  innocent." 

"She  positively  believes  then  they're  guilty?  She 
has  arrived  at  that,  she's  really  content  with  it,  in  the 
absence  of  proof?" 

It  was  here,  each  time,  that  Fanny  Assingham  most 
faltered;  but  always  at  last  to  get  the  matter,  for  her 
own  sense,  and  with  a  long  sigh,  sufficiently  straight. 
"It  isn't  a  question  of  belief  or  of  proof,  absent  or 
present ;  it's  inevitably,  with  her,  a  question  of  natural 
perception,  of  insurmountable  feeling.  She  irresistibly 
knows  that  there's  something  between  them.  But  she 
hasn't  'arrived'  at  it,  as  you  say,  at  all;  that's  exactly 
what  she  hasn't  done,  what  she  so  steadily  and  in 
tensely  refuses  to  do.  She  stands  off  and  off,  so  as  not 
to  arrive;  she  keeps  out  to  sea  and  away  from  the 
rocks,  and  what  she  most  wants  of  me  is  to  keep  at 
a  safe  distance  with  her — as  I,  for  my  own  skin,  only 
ask  not  to  come  nearer."  After  which,  invariably,  she 

136 


THE  PRINCESS 

let  him  have  it  all.  "So  far  from  wanting  proof — 
which  she  must  get,  in  a  manner,  by  my  siding  with 
her — she  wants  disproof,  as  against  herself,  and  has 
appealed  to  me,  so  extraordinarily,  to  side  against  her. 
It's  really  magnificent,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it, 
the  spirit  of  her  appeal.  If  I'll  but  cover  them  up 
brazenly  enough,  the  others,  so  as  to  show,  round  and 
about  them,  as  happy  as  a  bird,  she  on  her  side  will  do 
what  she  can.  If  I'll  keep  them  quiet,  in  a  word,  it 
will  enable  her  to  gain  time — time  as  against  any  idea 
of  her  father's — and  so,  somehow,  come  out.  If  I'll 
take  care  of  Charlotte,  in  particular,  she'll  take  care 
of  the  Prince;  and  it's  beautiful  and  wonderful,  really 
pathetic  and  exquisite,  to  see  what  she  feels  that  time 
may  do  for  her." 

"Ah,  but  what  does  she  call,  poor  little  thing, 
'time'?" 

"Well,  this  summer  at  Fawns,  to  begin  with.  She 
can  live  as  yet,  of  course,  but  from  hand  to  mouth ;  but 
she  has  worked  it  out  for  herself,  I  think,  that  the 
very  danger  of  Fawns,  superficially  looked  at,  may 
practically  amount  to  a  greater  protection.  There 
the  lovers — if  they  are  lovers! — will  have  to  mind. 
They'll  feel  it  for  themselves,  unless  things  are  too 
utterly  far  gone  with  them." 

"And  things  are  not  too  utterly  far  gone  with 
them?" 

She  had  inevitably,  poor  woman,  her  hesitation  for 
this,  but  she  put  down  her  answer  as,  for  the  purchase 
of  some  absolutely  indispensable  article,  she  would 
have  put  down  her  last  shilling.  "No." 

137 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

It  made  him  always  grin  at  her.    "Is  that  a  lie?" 

"Do  you  think  you're  worth  lying  to  ?  If  it  weren't 
the  truth,  for  me,"  she  added,  "I  wouldn't  have  ac 
cepted  for  Fawns.  I  can,  I  believe,  keep  the  wretches 
quiet." 

"But  how — at  the  worst?" 

"Oh,  'the  worst' — don't  talk  about  the  worst!  I 
can  keep  them  quiet  at  the  best,  I  seem  to  feel,  simply 
by  our  being  there.  It  will  work,  from  week  to  week, 
of  itself.  You'll  see." 

He  was  willing  enough  to  see,  but  he  desired  to  pro 
vide — !  "Yet  if  it  doesn't  work?" 

"Ah,  that's  talking  about  the  worst!" 

Well,  it  might  be;  but  what  were  they  doing,  from 
morning  to  night,  at  this  crisis,  but  talk?  "Who'll 
keep  the  others?" 

"The  others ?" 

"Who'll  keep  them  quiet?  If  your  couple  have  had 
a  life  together,  they  can't  have  had  it  completely  with 
out  witnesses,  without  the  help  of  persons,  however 
few,  who  must  have  some  knowledge,  some  idea  about 
them.  They've  had  to  meet,  secretly,  protectedly, 
they've  had  to  arrange;  for  if  they  haven't  met,  and 
haven't  arranged,  and  haven't  thereby,  in  some  quarter 
or  other,  had  to  give  themselves  away,  why  are  we 
piling  it  up  so  ?  Therefore  if  there's  evidence,  up  and 
down  London " 

"There  must  be  people  in  possession  of  it?  Ah,  it 
isn't  all,"  she  always  remembered,  "up  and  down  Lon 
don.  Some  of  it  must  connect  them — I  mean,"  she 
musingly  added,  "it  naturally  would — with  other 

138 


THE  PRINCESS 

places;  with  who  knows  what  strange  adventures,  op 
portunities,  dissimulations?  But  whatever  there  may 
have  been,  it  will  also  all  have  been  buried  on  the  spot. 
Oh,  they've  known  how — too  beautifully!  But  noth 
ing,  all  the  same,  is  likely  to  find  its  way  to  Maggie  of 
itself." 

"Because  every  one  who  may  have  anything  to  tell, 
you  hold,  will  have  been  so  squared?"  And  then  in- 
veterately,  before  she  could  say — he  enjoyed  so  much 
coming  to  this :  "What  will  have  squared  Lady 
Castledean?" 

"The  consciousness" — she  had  never  lost  her 
promptness — "of  having  no  stones  to  throw  at  any  one 
else's  windows.  She  has  enough  to  do  to  guard  her 
own  glass.  That  was  what  she  was  doing,"  Fanny 
said,  "that  last  morning  at  Matcham  when  all  of  us 
went  off  and  she  kept  the  Prince  and  Charlotte  over. 
She  helped  them  simply  that  she  might  herself  be 
helped — if  it  wasn't  perhaps,  rather,  with  her  ridicu 
lous  Mr.  Blint,  that  he  might  be.  They  put  in 
together,  therefore,  of  course,  that  day;  they  got  it 
clear — and  quite  under  her  eyes;  inasmuch  as  they 
didn't  become  traceable  again,  as  we  know,  till  late  in 
the  evening."  On  this  historic  circumstance  Mrs.  As- 
singham  was  always  ready  afresh  to  brood;  but  she 
was  no  less  ready,  after  her  brooding,  devoutly  to  add : 
"Only  we  know  nothing  whatever  else — for  which  all 
our  stars  be  thanked !" 

The  Colonel's  gratitude  was  apt  to  be  less  marked. 
"What  did  they  do  for  themselves,  all  the  same,  from 
the  moment  they  got  that  free  hand  to  the  moment 

139 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

(long  after  dinner-time,  haven't  you  told  me?)  of 
their  turning  up  at  their  respective  homes?" 

"Well,  it's  none  of  your  business!" 

"I  don't  speak  of  it  as  mine,  but  it's  only  too  much 
theirs.  People  are  always  traceable,  in  England, 
when  tracings  are  required.  Something,  sooner  or 
later,  happens;  somebody,  sooner  or  later,  breaks  the 
holy  calm.  Murder  will  out." 

"Murder  will — but  this  isn't  murder.  Quite  the 
contrary  perhaps !  I  verily  believe,"  she  had  her  mo 
ments  of  adding,  "that,  for  the  amusement  of  the  row, 
you  would  prefer  an  explosion." 

This,  however,  was  a  remark  he  seldom  noticed ;  he 
wound  up,  for  the  most  part,  after  a  long,  contempla 
tive  smoke,  with  a  transition  from  which  no  exposed 
futility  in  it  had  succeeded  in  weaning  him.  "What 
I  can't  for  my  life  make  out  is  your  idea  of  the  old 
boy." 

"Charlotte's  too  inconceivably  funny  husband?  I 
have  no  idea." 

"I  beg  your  pardon — you've  just  shown  it.  You 
never  speak  of  him  but  as  too  inconceivably  funny." 

"Well,  he  is,"  she  always  confessed.  "That  is  he 
may  be,  for  all  I  know,  too  inconceivably  great.  But 
that's  not  an  idea.  It  represents  only  my  weak  neces 
sity  of  feeling  that  he's  beyond  me — which  isn't  an 
idea  either.  You  see  he  may  be  stupid  too." 

"Precisely — there  you  are." 

"Yet  on  the  other  hand,"  she  always  went  on,  "he 
may  be  sublime:  sublimer  even  than  Maggie  herself. 
He  may  in  fact  have  already  been.  But  we  shall  never 

140 


THE  PRINCESS 

know."  With  which  her  tone  betrayed  perhaps  a 
shade  of  soreness  for  the  single  exemption  she  didn't 
yearningly  welcome.  "That  I  can  see." 

"Oh,  I  say !"  It  came  to  affect  the  Colonel 

himself  with  a  sense  of  privation. 

"I'm  not  sure,  even,  that  Charlotte  will." 

"Oh,  my  dear,  what  Charlotte  doesn't  know !" 

But  she  brooded  and  brooded.  "I'm  not  sure  even 
that  the  Prince  will."  It  seemed  privation,  in  short, 
for  them  all.  "They'll  be  mystified,  confounded,  tor 
mented.  But  they  won't  know — and  all  their  possible 
putting  their  heads  together  won't  make  them. 
That,"  said  Fanny  Assingham,  "will  be  their  punish 
ment."  And  she  ended,  ever,  when  she  had  come  so 
far,  at  the  same  pitch.  "It  will  probably  also — if  I  get 
off  with  so  little — be  mine." 

"And  what,"  her  husband  liked  to  ask,  "will  be 
mine?" 

"Nothing — you're  not  worthy  of  any.  One's  pun 
ishment  is  in  what  one  feels,  and  what  will  make  ours 
effective  is  that  we  shall  feel."  She  was  splendid  with 
her  "ours" ;  she  flared  up  with  this  prophecy.  "It  will 
be  Maggie  herself  who  will  mete  it  out." 

"Maggie ?" 

"She'll  know — about  her  father;  everything. 
Everything,"  she  repeated.  On  the  vision  of  which, 
each  time,  Mrs.  Assingham,  as  with  the  presentiment 
of  an  odd  despair,  turned  away  from  it.  "But  she'll 
never  tell  us." 


141 


XXXII 

IF  Maggie  had  not  so  firmly  made  up  her  mind  never 
to  say,  either  to  her  good  friend  or  to  any  one  else, 
more  than  she  meant  about  her  father,  she  might  have 
found  herself  betrayed  into  some  such  overflow  dur 
ing  the  week  spent  in  London  with  her  husband 
after  the  others  had  adjourned  to  Fawns  for  the  sum 
mer.  This  was  because  of  the  odd  element  of  the 
unnatural  imparted  to  the  so  simple  fact  of  their  brief 
separation  by  the  assumptions  resident  in  their  course 
of  life  hitherto.  She  was  used,  herself,  certainly,  by 
this  time,  to  dealing  with  odd  elements;  but  she 
dropped,  instantly,  even  from  such  peace  as  she  had 
patched  up,  when  it  was  a  question  of  feeling  that 
her  unpenetrated  parent  might  be  alone  with  them. 
She  thought  of  him  as  alone  with  them  when  she 
thought  of  him  as  alone  with  Charlotte — and  this, 
strangely  enough,  even  while  fixing  her  sense  to  the 
full  on  his  wife's  power  of  preserving,  quite  of  en 
hancing,  every  felicitous  appearance.  Charlotte  had 
done  that — under  immeasurably  fewer  difficulties 
indeed — during  the  numerous  months  of  their  hy 
meneal  absence  from  England,  the  period  prior  to 
that  wonderful  reunion  of  the  couples,  in  the  interest 
of  the  larger  play  of  all  the  virtues  of  each,  which 

142 


THE   PRINCESS 

was  now  bearing,  for  Mrs.  Verver's  stepdaughter  at 
least,  such  remarkable  fruit.  It  was  the  present  so 
much  briefer  interval,  in  a  situation,  possibly  in  a  re 
lation,  so  changed — it  was  the  new  terms  of  her 
problem  that  would  tax  Charlotte's  art.  The  Prin 
cess  could  pull  herself  up,  repeatedly,  by  remembering 
that  the  real  "relation"  between  her  father  and 
his  wife  was  a  thing  that  she  knew  nothing  about 
and  that,  in  strictness,  was  none  of  her  business;  but 
she  none  the  less  failed  to  keep  quiet,  as  she  would 
have  called  it,  before  the  projected  image  of  their 
ostensibly  happy  isolation.  Nothing  could  have  had 
less  of  the  quality  of  quietude  than  a  certain  queer 
wish  that  fitfully  flickered  up  in  her,  a  wish  that 
usurped,  perversely,  the  place  of  a  much  more  natural 
one.  If  Charlotte,  while  she  was  about  it,  could  only 
have  been  zvorse! — that  idea  Maggie  fell  to  invoking 
instead  of  the  idea  that  she  might  desirably  have  been 
better.  For,  exceedingly  odd  as  it  was  to  feel  in  such 
ways,  she  believed  she  mightn't  have  worried  so  much 
if  she  didn't  somehow  make  her  stepmother  out, 
under  the  beautiful  trees  and  among  the  dear  old 
gardens,  as  lavish  of  fifty  kinds  of  confidence  and 
twenty  kinds,  at  least,  of  gentleness.  Gentleness  and 
confidence  were  certainly  the  right  thing,  as  from 
a  charming  woman  to  her  husband,  but  the  fine  tissue 
of  reassurance  woven  by  this  lady's  hands  and  flung 
over  her  companion  as  a  light,  muffling  veil,  formed 
precisely  a  wrought  transparency  through  which  she 
felt  her  father's  eyes  continually  rest  on  herself.  The 
reach  of  his  gaze  came  to  her  straighter  from  a  dis- 

143 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

tance;  it  showed  him  as  still  more  conscious,  down 
there  alone,  of  the  suspected,  the  felt  elaboration  of 
the  process  of  their  not  alarming  or  hurting  him. 
She  had  herself  now,  for  weeks  and  weeks,  and  all 
unwinkingly,  traced  the  extension  of  this  pious  effort ; 
but  her  perfect  success  in  giving  no  sign — she  did 
herself  that  credit — would  have  been  an  achievement 
quite  wasted  if  Mrs.  Verver  should  make  with  him 
those  mistakes  of  proportion,  one  set  of  them  too 
abruptly,  too  incoherently  designed  to  correct  another 
set,  that  she  had  made  with  his  daughter.  However, 
if  she  had  been  worse,  poor  woman,  who  should  say 
that  her  husband  would,  to  a  certainty,  have  been 
better? 

One  groped  noiselessly  among  such  questions,  and 
it  was  actually  not  even  definite  for  the  Princess  that 
her  own  Amerigo,  left  alone  with  her  in  town,  had 
arrived  at  the  golden  mean  of  non-precautionary 
gallantry  which  would  tend,  by  his  calculation,  to  brush 
private  criticism  from  its  last  perching-place.  The 
truth  was,  in  this  connection,  that  she  had  different 
sorts  of  terrors,  and  there  were  hours  when  it  came 
to  her  that  these  days  were  a  prolonged  repetition 
of  that  night-drive,  of  weeks  before,  from  the  other 
house  to  their  own,  when  he  had  tried  to  charm  her, 
by  his  sovereign  personal  power,  into  some  collapse 
that  would  commit  her  to  a  repudiation  of  con 
sistency.  She  was  never  alone  with  him,  it  was  to  be 
said,  without  her  having  sooner  or  later  to  ask  herself 
what  had  already  become  of  her  consistency;  yet,  at 
the  same  time,  so  long  as  she  breathed  no  charge, 

144 


THE   PRINCESS 

she  kept  hold  of  a  remnant  of  appearance  that  could 
save  her  from  attack.  Attack,  real  attack,  from  him, 
as  he  would  conduct  it,  was  what  she  above  all 
dreaded;  she  was  so  far  from  sure  that  under  that 
experience  she  mightn't  drop  into  some  depth  of 
weakness,  mightn't  show  him  some  shortest  way  with 
her  that  he  would  know  how  to  use  again.  Therefore, 
since  she  had  given  him,  as  yet,  no  moment's  pretext 
for  pretending  to  her  that  she  had  either  lost  faith 
or  suffered  by  a  feather's  weight  in  happiness,  she 
left  him,  it  was  easy  to  reason,  with  an  immense  ad 
vantage  for  all  waiting  and  all  tension.  She  wished 
him,  for  the  present,  to  "make  up"  to  her  for  nothing. 
Who  could  say  to  what  making-up  might  lead,  into 
what  consenting  or  pretending  or  destroying  blind 
ness  it  might  plunge  her?  She  loved  him  too 
helplessly,  still,  to  dare  to  open  the  door,  by  an  inch, 
to  his  treating  her  as  if  either  of  them  had  wronged 
the  other.  Something  or  somebody — and  who,  at 
this,  which  of  them  all? — would  inevitably,  would  in 
the  gust  of  momentary  selfishness,  be  sacrificed  to 
that;  whereas  what  she  intelligently  needed  was  to 
know  where  she  was  going.  Knowledge,  knowledge, 
was  a  fascination  as  well  as  a  fear;  and  a  part,  pre 
cisely,  of  the  strangeness  of  this  juncture  was  the 
way  her  apprehension  that  he  would  break  out  to  her 
with  some  merely  general  profession  was  mixed  with 
her  dire  need  to  forgive  him,  to  reassure  him,  to 
respond  to  him,  on  no  ground  that  she  didn't  fully 
measure.  To  do  these  things  it  must  be  clear  to  her 
what  they  were  for;  but  to  act  in  that  light  was,  by 
VOL.  II— 10  145 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

the  same  effect,  to  learn,  horribly,  what  the  other 
things  had  been.  He  might  tell  her  only  what 
he  wanted,  only  what  would  work  upon  her  by  the 
beauty  of  his  appeal;  and  the  result  of  the  direct  ap 
peal  of  any  beauty  in  him  would  be  her  helpless 
submission  to  his  terms.  All  her  temporary  safety, 
her  hand-to-mouth  success,  accordingly,  was  in  his 
neither  perceiving  nor  divining  this,  thanks  to  such 
means  as  she  could  take  to  prevent  him;  take,  liter 
ally  from  hour  to  hour,  during  these  days  of  more 
unbroken  exposure.  From  hour  to  hour  she  fairly 
expected  some  sign  of  his  having  decided  on  a  jump. 
"Ah  yes,  it  has  been  as  you  think;  I've  strayed  away, 
I've  fancied  myself  free,  given  myself  in  other  quan 
tities,  with  larger  generosities,  because  I  thought  you 
were  different — different  from  what  I  now  see.  But 
it  was  only,  only,  because  I  didn't  know — and  you 
must  admit  that  you  gave  me  scarce  reason  enough. 
Reason  enough,  I  mean,  to  keep  clear  of  my  mistake; 
to  which  I  confess,  for  which  I'll  do  exquisite  pen 
ance,  which  you  can  help  me  now,  I  too  beautifully 
feel,  to  get  completely  over." 

That  was  what,  while  she  watched  herself,  she  po 
tentially  heard  him  bring  out;  and  while  she  carried 
to  an  end  another  day,  another  sequence  and  yet  an 
other  of  their  hours  together,  without  his  producing 
it,  she  felt  herself  occupied  with  him  beyond  even  the 
intensity  of  surrender.  She  was  keeping  her  head, 
for  a  reason,  for  a  cause;  and  the  labour  of  this  de 
tachment,  with  the  labour  of  her  keeping  the  pitch 
of  it  down,  held  them  together  in  the  steel  hoop  of 

146 


THE  PRINCESS 

an  intimacy  compared  with  which  artless  passion 
would  have  been  but  a  beating  of  the  air.  Her  great 
est  danger,  or  at  least  her  greatest  motive  for  care, 
was  the  obsession  of  the  thought  that,  if  he  actually 
did  suspect,  the  fruit  of  his  attention  to  her  couldn't 
help  being  a  sense  of  the  growth  of  her  importance. 
Taking  the  measure,  with  him,  as  she  had  taken  it 
with  her  father,  of  the  prescribed  reach  of  her 
hypocrisy,  she  saw  how  it  would  have  to  stretch  even 
to  her  seeking  to  prove  that  she  was  not,  all  the  same, 
important.  A  single  touch  from  him — oh,  she  should 
know  it  in  case  of  its  coming! — any  brush  of  his  hand, 
of  his  lips,  of  his  voice,  inspired  by  recognition  of  her 
probable  interest  as  distinct  from  pity  for  her  virtual 
gloom,  would  hand  her  over  to  him  bound  hand  and 
foot.  Therefore  to  be  free,  to  be  free  to  act,  other 
than  abjectly,  for  her  father,  she  must  conceal  from 
him  the  validity  that,  like  a  microscopic  insect  push 
ing  a  grain  of  sand,  she  was  taking  on  even  for  herself. 
She  could  keep  it  up  with  a  change  in  sight,  but  she 
couldn't  keep  it  up  for  ever;  so  that,  really,  one 
extraordinary  effect  of  their  week  of  untempered  con 
frontation,  which  bristled  with  new  marks,  was  to 
make  her  reach  out,  in  thought,  to  their  customary 
companions  and  calculate  the  kind  of  relief  that  re 
joining  them  would  bring.  She  was  learning,  almost 
from  minute  to  minute,  to  be  a  mistress  of  shades 
— since,  always,  when  there  were  possibilities  enough 
of  intimacy,  there  were  also,  by  that  fact,  in  inter 
course,  possibilities  of  iridescence;  but  she  was 
working  against  an  adversary  who  was  a  master  of 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

shades  too,  and  on  whom,  if  she  didn't  look  out,  she 
should  presently  have  imposed  a  consciousness  of  the 
nature  of  their  struggle.  To  feel  him  in  fact,  to  think 
of  his  feeling  himself,  her  adversary  in  things  of  this 
fineness — to  see  him  at  all,  in  short,  brave  a  name 
that  would  represent  him  as  in  opposition — was  al 
ready  to  be  nearly  reduced  to  a  visible  smothering 
of  her  cry  of  alarm.  Should  he  guess  they  were  hav 
ing,  in  their  so  occult  manner,  a  high  fight,  and  that 
it  was  she,  all  the  while,  in  her  supposed  stupidity, 
who  had  made  it  high  and  was  keeping  it  high — in 
the  event  of  his  doing  this  before  they  could  leave 
town  she  should  verily  be  lost. 

The  possible  respite  for  her  at  Fawns' would  come 
from  the  fact  that  observation,  in  him,  there,  would 
inevitably  find  some  of  its  directness  diverted.  This 
would  be  the  case  if  only  because  the  remarkable 
strain  of  her  father's  placidity  might  be  thought  of 
as  likely  to  claim  some  larger  part  of  his  attention. 
Besides  which  there  would  be  always  Charlotte  her 
self  to  draw  him  off.  Charlotte  would  help  him  again, 
doubtless,  to  study  anything,  right  or  left,  that  might 
be  symptomatic;  but  Maggie  could  see  that  this  very 
fact  might  perhaps  contribute,  in  its  degree,  to  pro 
tect  the  secret  of  her  own  fermentation.  It  is  not 
even  incredible  that  she  may  have  discovered  the 
gleam  of  a  comfort  that  was  to  broaden  in  the  con 
ceivable  effect  on  the  Prince's  spirit,  on  his  nerves, 
on  his  finer  irritability,  of  some  of  the  very  airs  and 
aspects,  the  light  graces  themselves,  of  Mrs.  Verver's 
too  perfect  competence.  What  it  would  most  come 

148 


THE  PRINCESS 

to,  after  all,  she  said  to  herself,  was  a  renewal  for 
him  of  the  privilege  of  watching  that  lady  watch  her. 
Very  well,  then :  with  the  elements  after  all  so  mixed 
in  him,  how  long  would  he  go  on  enjoying  mere 
spectatorship  of  that  act?  For  she  had  by  this  time 
made  up  her  mind  that  in  Charlotte's  company  he 
deferred  to  Charlotte's  easier  art  of  mounting  guard. 
Wouldn't  he  get  tired — to  put  it  only  at  that — of 
seeing  her  always  on  the  rampart,  erect  and  elegant, 
with  her  lace-flounced  parasol  now  folded  and  now 
shouldered,  march  to  and  fro  against  a  gold-coloured 
east  or  west?  Maggie  had  gone  far,  truly  for  a 
view  of  the  question  of  this  particular  reaction,  and 
she  was  not  incapable  of  pulling  herself  up  with  the 
rebuke  that  she  counted  her  chickens  before  they 
were  hatched.  How  sure  she  should  have  to  be  of 
so  many  things  before  she  might  thus  find  a  weariness 
in  Amerigo's  expression  and  a  logic  in  his  weariness! 
One  of  her  dissimulated  arts  for  meeting  their 
tension,  meanwhile,  was  to  interweave  Mrs.  Assing- 
ham  as  plausibly  as  possible  with  the  undulations  of 
their  surface,  to  bring  it  about  that  she  should  join 
them,  of  an  afternoon,  when  they  drove  together  or 
if  they  went  to  look  at  things — looking  at  things 
being  almost  as  much  a  feature  of  their  life  as  if  they 
were  bazaar-opening  royalties.  Then  there  were  such 
combinations,  later  in  the  day,  as  her  attendance  on 
them,  and  the  Colonel's  as  well,  for  such  whimsical 
matters  as  visits  to  the  opera  no  matter  who  was 
singing,  and  sudden  outbreaks  of  curiosity  about  the 
British  drama.  The  good  couple  from  Cadogan 

149 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

Place  could  always  unprotestingly  dine  with  them 
and  "go  on"  afterwards  to  such  publicities  as  the 
Princess  cultivated  the  boldness  of  now  perversely 
preferring.  It  may  be  said  of  her  that,  during  these 
passages,  she  plucked  her  sensations  by  the  way,  de 
tached,  nervously,  the  small  wild  blossoms  of  her  dim 
forest,  so  that  she  could  smile  over  them  at  least 
with  the  spacious  appearance,  for  her  companions, 
for  her  husband  above  all,  of  bravely,  of  altogether 
frivolously,  going  a-maying.  She  had  her  intense, 
her  smothered  excitements,  some  of  which  were 
almost  inspirations;  she  had  in  particular  the  extrava 
gant,  positively  at  moments  the  amused,  sense  of 
using  her  friend  to  the  topmost  notch,  accompanied 
with  the  high  luxury  of  not  having  to  explain. 
Never,  no  never,  should  she  have  to  explain  to  Fanny 
Assingham  again — who,  poor  woman,  on  her  own 
side,  would  be  charged,  it  might  be  for  ever,  with 
that  privilege  of  the  higher  ingenuity.  She  put  it  all 
off  on  Fanny,  and  the  dear  thing  herself  might  hence 
forth  appraise  the  quantity.  More  and  more  mag 
nificent  now  in  her  blameless  egoism,  Maggie  asked 
no  questions  of  her,  and  thus  only  signified  the 
greatness  of  the  opportunity  she  gave  her.  She 
didn't  care  for  what  devotions,  what  dinners  of  their 
own  the  Assinghams  might  have  been  "booked"; 
that  was  a  detail,  and  she  could  think  without  wincing 
of  the  ruptures  and  rearrangements  to  which  her 
service  condemned  them.  It  all  fell  in  beautifully, 
moreover;  so  that,  as  hard,  at  this  time,  in  spite  of  her 
fever,  as  a  little  pointed  diamond,  the  Princess  showed 


THE  PRINCESS 

something  of  the  glitter  of  consciously  possessing  the 
constructive,  the  creative  hand.  She  had  but  to  have 
the  fancy  of  presenting  herself,  of  presenting  her  hus 
band,  in  a  certain  high  and  convenient  manner,  to 
make  it  natural  they  should  go  about  with  their 
gentleman  and  their  lady.  To  what  else  but  this, 
exactly,  had  Charlotte,  during  so  many  weeks  of  the 
earlier  season,  worked  her  up? — herself  assuming  and 
discharging,  so  far  as  might  be,  the  character  and 
office  of  one  of  those  revolving  subordinate  presences 
that  float  in  the  wake  of  greatness. 

The  precedent  was  therefore  established  and  the 
group  normally  constituted.  Mrs.  Assingham, 
meanwhile,  at  table,  on  the  stairs,  in  the  carriage 
or  the  opera-box,  might — with  her  constant  over 
flow  of  expression,  for  that  matter,  and  its  singularly 
resident  character  where  men  in  especial  were  con 
cerned — look  across  at  Amerigo  in  whatever  sense 
she  liked:  it  was  not  of  that  Maggie  proposed  to  be 
afraid.  She  might  warn  him,  she  might  rebuke  him, 
she  might  reassure  him,  she  might — if  it  were  impos 
sible  not  to — absolutely  make  love  to  him;  even  this 
was  open  to  her,  as  a  matter  simply  between  them, 
if  it  would  help  her  to  answer  for  the  impeccability 
she  had  guaranteed.  And  Maggie  desired  in  fact  only 
to  strike  her  as  acknowledging  the  efficacy  of  her 
aid  when  she  mentioned  to  her  one  evening  a  small 
project  for  the  morrow,  privately  entertained — the 
idea,  irresistible,  intense,  of  going  to  pay,  at  the 
Museum,  a  visit  to  Mr.  Crichton.  Mr.  Crichton,  as 
Mrs.  Assingham  could  easily  remember,  was  the  most 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

accomplished  and  obliging  of  public  functionaries, 
whom  every  one  knew  and  who  knew  every  one — 
who  had  from  the  first,  in  particular,  lent  himself 
freely,  and  for  the  love  of  art  and  history,  to  becoming 
one  of  the  steadier  lights  of  Mr.  Verver's  adven 
turous  path.  The  custodian  of  one  of  the  richest 
departments  of  the  great  national  collection  of 
precious  things,  he  could  feel  for  the  sincere  private 
collector  and  urge  him  on  his  way  even  when  con 
demned  to  be  present  at  his  capture  of  trophies 
sacrificed  by  the  country  to  parliamentary  thrift. 
He  carried  his  amiability  to  the  point  of  saying  that, 
since  London,  under  pettifogging  views,  had  to  miss, 
from  time  to  time,  its  rarest  opportunities,  he  was 
almost  consoled  to  see  such  lost  causes  invariably 
wander  at  last,  one  by  one,  with  the  tormenting  tinkle 
of  their  silver  bells,  into  the  wondrous,  the  already 
famous  fold  beyond  the  Mississippi.  There  was  a 
charm  in  his  "almosts"  that  was  not  to  be  resisted, 
especially  after  Mr.  Verver  and  Maggie  had  grown 
sure — or  almost,  again — of  enjoying  the  monopoly 
of  them;  and  on  this  basis  of  envy  changed  to  sym 
pathy  by  the  more  familiar  view  of  the  father  and 
the  daughter,  Mr.  Crichton  had  at  both  houses, 
though  especially  in  Eaton  Square,  learned  to  fill 
out  the  responsive  and  suggestive  character.  It  was 
at  his  invitation,  Fanny  well  recalled,  that  Maggie, 
one  day,  long  before,  and  under  her  own  attendance 
precisely,  had,  for  the  glory  of  the  name  she  bore, 
paid  a  visit  to  one  of  the  ampler  shrines  of  the 
supreme  exhibitory  temple,  an  alcove  of  shelves 

152 


THE   PRINCESS 

charged  with  the  gold-and-brown,  gold-and-ivory,  of 
old  Italian  bindings  and  consecrated  to  the  records 
of  the  Prince's  race.  It  had  been  an  impression  that 
penetrated,  that  remained;  yet  Maggie  had  sighed, 
ever  so  prettily,  at  its  having  to  be  so  superficial.  She 
was  to  go  back  some  day,  to  dive  deeper,  to  linger 
and  taste;  in  spite  of  which,  however,  Mrs.  Assing- 
ham  could  not  recollect  perceiving  that  the  visit  had 
been  repeated.  This  second  occasion  had  given  way, 
for  a  long  time,  in  her  happy  life,  to  other  occasions 
— all  testifying,  in  their  degree,  to  the  quality  of  her 
husband's  blood,  its  rich  mixture  and  its  many  re 
markable  references;  after  which,  no  doubt,  the 
charming  piety  involved  had  grown,  on  still  further 
grounds,  bewildered  and  faint. 

It  now  appeared,  none  the  less,  that  some  renewed 
conversation  with  Mr.  Crichton  had  breathed  on  the 
faintness  revivingly,  and  Maggie  mentioned  her  pur 
pose  as  a  conception  of  her  very  own,  to  the  success 
of  which  she  designed  to  devote  her  morning.  Visits 
of  gracious  ladies,  under  his  protection,  lighted  up 
rosily,  for  this  perhaps  most  flower-loving  and  honey- 
sipping  member  of  the  great  Bloomsbury  hive,  its 
packed  passages  and  cells;  and  though  not  sworn 
of  the  province  toward  which  his  friend  had  found 
herself,  according  to  her  appeal  to  him,  yearning 
again,  nothing  was  easier  for  him  than  to  put  her 
in  relation  with  the  presiding  urbanities.  So  it  had 
been  settled,  Maggie  said  to  Mrs.  Assingham,  and 
she  was  to  dispense  with  Amerigo's  company.  Fanny 
was  to  remember  later  on  that  she  had  at  first  taken 

153 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

this  last  fact  for  one  of  the  finer  notes  of  her  young 
woman's  detachment,  imagined  she  must  be  going 
alone  because  of  the  shade  of  irony  that,  in  these 
ambiguous  days,  her  husband's  personal  presence 
might  be  felt  to  confer,  practically,  on  any  trib 
ute  to  his  transmitted  significance.  Then  as,  the 
next  moment,  she  felt  it  clear  that  so  much  plotted 
freedom  was  virtually  a  refinement  of  reflection,  an 
impulse  to  commemorate  afresh  whatever  might  still 
survive  of  pride  and  hope,  her  sense  of  ambiguity 
happily  fell  and  she  congratulated  her  companion 
on  having  anything  so  exquisite  to  do  and  on  being 
so  exquisitely  in  the  humour  to  do  it.  After  the 
occasion  had  come  and  gone  she  was  confirmed  in 
her  optimism;  she  made  out,  in  the  evening,  that  the 
hour  spent  among  the  projected  lights,  the  annals 
and  illustrations,  the  parchments  and  portraits,  the 
emblazoned  volumes  and  the  murmured  commentary, 
had  been  for  the  Princess  enlarging  and  inspiring. 
Maggie  had  said  to  her  some  days  before,  very 
sweetly  but  very  firmly,  "Invite  us  to  dine,  please, 
for  Friday,  and  have  any  one  you  like  or  you  can — 
it  doesn't  in  the  least  matter  whom;"  and  the  pair 
in  Cadogan  Place  had  bent  to  this  mandate  with  a 
docility  not  in  the  least  ruffled  by  all  that  it  took 
for  granted. 

It  provided  for  an  evening — this  had  been  Maggie's 
view;  and  she  lived  up  to  her  view,  in  her  friend's  eyes, 
by  treating  the  occasion,  more  or  less  explicitly,  as 
new  and  strange.  The  good  Assinghams  had  feasted 

154 


THE   PRINCESS 

in  fact  at  the  two  other  boards  on  a  scale  so  dispropor 
tionate  to  the  scant  solicitations  of  their  own  that  it 
was  easy  to  make  a  joke  of  seeing  how  they  fed  at 
home,  how  they  met,  themselves,  the  question  of 
giving  to  eat.  Maggie  dined  with  them,  in  short, 
and  arrived  at  making  her  husband  appear  to  dine, 
much  in  the  manner  of  a  pair  of  young  sovereigns 
who  have,  in  the  frolic  humour  of  the  golden  years 
of  reigns,  proposed  themselves  to  a  pair  of  faithfully- 
serving  subjects.  She  showed  an  interest  in  their 
arrangements,  an  inquiring  tenderness  almost  for 
their  economies;  so  that  her  hostess  not  unnaturally, 
as  they  might  have  said,  put  it  all  down — the  tone 
and  the  freedom  of  which  she  set  the  example — to 
the  effect  wrought  in  her  afresh  by  one  of  the  lessons 
learned,  in  the  morning,  at  the  altar  of  the  past. 
Hadn't  she  picked  it  up,  from  an  anecdote  or  two 
offered  again  to  her  attention,  that  there  were,  for 
princesses  of  such  a  line,  more  ways  than  one  of  being 
a  heroine?  Maggie's  way  to-night  was  to  surprise 
them  all,  truly,  by  the  extravagance  of  her  affability. 
She  was  doubtless  not  positively  boisterous;  yet, 
though  Mrs.  Assingham,  as  a  bland  critic,  had  never 
doubted  her  being  graceful,  she  had  never  seen  her 
put  so  much  of  it  into  being  what  might  have 
been  called  assertive.  It  was  all  a  tune  to  which 
Fanny's  heart  could  privately  palpitate:  her  guest 
was  happy,  happy  as  a  consequence  of  something 
that  had  occurred,  but  she  was  making  the  Prince  not 
lose  a  ripple  of  her  laugh,  though  not  perhaps  always 

155 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

enabling  him  to  find  it  absolutely  not  foolish.  Fool 
ish,  in  public,  beyond  a  certain  point,  he  was  scarce 
the  man  to  brook  his  wife's  being  thought  to  be;  so 
that  there  hovered  before  their  friend  the  possibility 
of  some  subsequent  scene  between  them,  in  the 
carriage  or  at  home,  of  slightly  sarcastic  inquiry,  of 
promptly  invited  explanation;  a  scene  that,  accord 
ing  as  Maggie  should  play  her  part  in  it,  might  or 
might  not  precipitate  developments.  What  made 
these  appearances  practically  thrilling,  meanwhile, 
was  this  mystery — a  mystery,  it  was  clear,  to  Amer 
igo  himself — of  the  incident  or  the  influence  that  had 
so  peculiarly  determined  them. 

The  lady  of  Cadogan  Place  was  to  read  deeper, 
however,  within  three  days,  and  the  page  was  turned 
for  her  on  the  eve  of  her  young  confidant's  leaving 
London.  The  awaited  migration  to  Fawns  was  to 
take  place  on  the  morrow,  and  it  was  known  mean 
while  to  Mrs.  Assingham  that  their  party  of  four 
were  to  dine  that  night,  at  the  American  Embassy, 
with  another  and  a  larger  party;  so  that  the  elder 
woman  had  a  sense  of  surprise  on  receiving  from  the 
younger,  under  date  of  six  o'clock,  a  telegram  re 
questing  her  immediate  attendance.  "Please  come 
to  me  at  once;  dress  early,  if  necessary,  so  that  we 
shall  have  time:  the  carriage,  ordered  for  us,  will  take 
you  back  first."  Mrs.  Assingham,  on  quick  deliber 
ation,  dressed,  though  not  perhaps  with  full  lucidity, 
and  by  seven  o'clock  was  in  Portland  Place,  where 
her  friend,  "upstairs"  and  described  to  her  on  her 

156 


THE   PRINCESS 

arrival  as  herself  engaged  in  dressing,  instantly  re 
ceived  her.  She  knew  on  the  spot,  poor  Fanny,  as 
she  was  afterwards  to  declare  to  the  Colonel,  that  her 
feared  crisis  had  popped  up  as  at  the  touch  of  a  spring, 
that  her  impossible  hour  was  before  her.  Her  im 
possible  hour  was  the  hour  of  its  coming  out  that 
she  had  known  of  old  so  much  more  than  she  had 
ever  said;  and  she  had  often  put  it  to  herself,  in  ap 
prehension,  she  tried  to  think  even  in  preparation, 
that  she  should  recognise  the  approach  of  her  doom 
by  a  consciousness  akin  to  that  of  the  blowing  open 
of  a  window  on  some  night  of  the  highest  wind  and 
the  lowest  thermometer.  It  would  be  all  in  vain  to 
have  crouched  so  long  by  the  fire;  the  glass  would 
have  been  smashed,  the  icy  air  would  fill  the  place. 
If  the  air  in  Maggie's  room  then,  on  her  going  up, 
was  not,  as  yet,  quite  the  polar  blast  she  had  ex 
pected,  it  was  distinctly,  none  the  less,  such  an 
atmosphere  as  they  had  not  hitherto  breathed  to 
gether.  The  Princess,  she  perceived,  was  completely 
dressed — that  business  was  over;  it  added  indeed  to 
the  effect  of  her  importantly  awaiting  the  assistance 
she  had  summoned,  of  her  showing  a  deck  cleared, 
so  to  speak,  for  action.  Her  maid  had  already  left 
her,  and  she  presented  herself,  in  the  large,  clear 
room,  where  everything  was  admirable,  but  where 
nothing  was  out  of  place,  as,  for  the  first  time  in  her 
life,  rather  "bedizened."  Was  it  that  she  had  put  on 
too  many  things,  overcharged  herself  with  jewels, 
wore  in  particular  more  of  them  than  usual,  and 

157 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

bigger  ones,  in  her  hair? — a  question  her  visitor 
presently  answered  by  attributing  this  appearance 
largely  to  the  bright  red  spot,  red  as  some  monstrous 
ruby,  that  burned  in  either  of  her  cheeks.  These  two 
items  of  her  aspect  had,  promptly  enough,  their  own 
light  for  Mrs.  Assingham,  who  made  out  by  it  that 
nothing  more  pathetic  could  be  imagined  than  the 
refuge  and  disguise  her  agitation  had  instinctively 
asked  of  the  arts  of  dress,  multiplied  to  extravagance, 
almost  to  incoherence.  She  had  had,  visibly,  her  idea 
— that  of  not  betraying  herself  by  inattentions  into 
which  she  had  never  yet  fallen,  and  she  stood 
there  circled  about  and  furnished  forth,  as  always, 
in  a  manner  that  testified  to  her  perfect  little  personal 
processes.  It  had  ever  been  her  sign  that  she  was, 
for  all  occasions,  found  ready,  without  loose  ends  or 
exposed  accessories  or  unrernoved  superfluities;  a 
suggestion  of  the  swept  and  garnished,  in  her  whole 
splendid,  yet  thereby  more  or  less  encumbered  and 
embroidered  setting,  that  reflected  her  small  still 
passion  for  order  and  symmetry,  for  objects  with 
their  backs  to  the  walls,  and  spoke  even  of  some 
probable  reference,  in  her  American  blood,  to  dusting 
and  polishing  New  England  grandmothers.  If  her 
apartment  was  "princely,"  in  the  clearness  of  the 
lingering  day,  she  looked  as  if  she  had  been  carried 
there  prepared,  all  attired  and  decorated,  like  some 
holy  image  in  a  procession,  and  left,  precisely,  to 
show  what  wonder  she  could  work  under  pressure. 
Her  friend  felt — how  could  she  not? — as  the  truly 
pious  priest  might  feel  when  confronted,  behind  the 

158 


THE  PRINCESS 

altar,  before  the  festa,  with  his  miraculous  Madonna. 
Such  an  occasion  would  be  grave,  in  general,  with 
all  the  gravity  of  what  he  might  look  for.  But  the 
gravity  to-night  would  be  of  the  rarest;  what  he  might 
look  for  would  depend  so  on  what  he  could  give. 


159 


XXXIII 

"SOMETHING   very   strange   has   happened,    and   I 
think  you  ought  to  know  it." 

Maggie  spoke  this  indeed  without  extravagance, 
yet  with  the  effect  of  making  her  guest  measure 
anew  the  force  of  her  appeal.  It  was  their  definite 
understanding:  whatever  Fanny  knew  Fanny's  faith 
would  provide  for.  And  she  knew,  accordingly,  at 
the  end  of  five  minutes,  what  the  extraordinary,  in 
the  late  occurrence,  had  consisted  of,  and  how  it  had 
all  come  of  Maggie's  achieved  hour,  under  Mr.  Crich- 
ton's  protection,  at  the  Museum.  He  had  desired, 
Mr.  Crichton,  with  characteristic  kindness,  after 
the  wonderful  show,  after  offered  luncheon  at  his 
incorporated  lodge  hard  by,  to  see  her  safely  home; 
especially  on  his  noting,  in  attending  her  to  the  great 
steps,  that  she  had  dismissed  her  carriage;  which  she 
had  done,  really,  just  for  the  harmless  amusement 
of  taking  her  way  alone.  She  had  known  she  should 
find  herself,  as  the  consequence  of  such  an  hour,  in 
a  sort  of  exalted  state,  under  the  influence  of  which 
a  walk  through  the  London  streets  would  be  exactly 
what  would  suit  her  best;  an  independent  ramble, 
impressed,  excited,  contented,  with  nothing  to  mind 
and  nobody  to  talk  to,  and  shop-windows  in  plenty 

160 


THE  PRINCESS 

to  look  at  if  she  liked:  a  low  taste,  of  the  essence, 
it  was  to  be  supposed,  of  her  nature,  that  she  had  of 
late,  for  so  many  reasons,  been  unable  to  gratify. 
She  had  taken  her  leave,  with  her  thanks — she  knew 
her  way  quite  enough;  it  being  also  sufficiently  the 
case  that  she  had  even  a  shy  hope  of  not  going  too 
straight.  To  wander  a  little  wild  was  what  would 
truly  amuse  her;  so  that,  keeping  clear  of  Oxford 
Street  and  cultivating  an  impression  as  of  parts  she 
didn't  know,  she  had  ended  with  what  she  had  more 
or  less  had  been  fancying,  an  encounter  with  three  or 
four  shops — an  old  bookseller's,  an  old  print- 
monger's,  a  couple  of  places  with  dim  antiquities  in 
the  window — that  were  not  as  so  many  of  the  other 
shops,  those  in  Sloane  Street,  say;  a  hollow  parade 
which  had  long  since  ceased  to  beguile.  There  had 
remained  with  her  moreover  an  allusion  of  Char 
lotte's,  of  some  months  before — seed  dropped  into 
her  imagination  in  the  form  of  a  casual  speech  about 
there  being  in  Bloomsbury  such  "funny  little  fascinat 
ing"  places  and  even  sometimes  such  unexpected 
finds.  There  could  perhaps  have  been  no  stronger 
mark  than  this  sense  of  well-nigh  romantic  oppor 
tunity — no  livelier  sign  of  the  impression  made  on 
her,  and  always  so  long  retained,  so  watchfully 
nursed,  by  any  observation  of  Charlotte's,  however 
lightly  thrown  off.  And  then  she  had  felt,  somehow, 
more  at  her  ease  than  for  months  and  months  before; 
she  didn't  know  why,  but  her  time  at  the  Museum, 
oddly,  had  done  it;  it  was  as  if  she  hadn't  come 
into  so  many  noble  and  beautiful  associations,  nor 

VOL.  II.— ir  l6l 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

secured  them  also  for  her  boy,  secured  them  even  for 
her  father,  only  to  see  them  turn  to  vanity  and  doubt, 
turn  possibly  to  something  still  worse.  "I  believed 
in  him  again  as  much  as  ever,  and  I  felt  how  I  be 
lieved  in  him,"  she  said  with  bright,  fixed  eyes;  "I 
felt  it  in  the  streets  as  I  walked  along,  and  it  was  as 
if  that  helped  me  and  lifted  me  up,  my  being  off  by 
myself  there,  not  having,  for  the  moment,  to  wonder 
and  watch;  having,  on  the  contrary,  almost  nothing 
on  my  mind." 

It  was  so  much  as  if  everything  would  come  out 
right  that  she  had  fallen  to  thinking  of  her  father's 
birthday,  had  given  herself  this  as  a  reason  for  trying 
what  she  could  pick  up  for  it.  They  would  keep  it 
at  Fawns,  where  they  had  kept  it  before — since  it 
would  be  the  twenty-first  of  the  month;  and  she 
mightn't  have  another  chance  of  making  sure  of 
something  to  offer  him.  There  was  always  the  im 
possibility,  of  course,  of  finding  him  anything,  the 
least  bit  "good,"  that  he  wouldn't  already,  long  ago, 
in  his  rummagings,  have  seen  himself — and  only  not 
to  think  a  quarter  good  enough;  this,  however,  was 
an  old  story,  and  one  could  not  have  had  any  fun 
with  him  but  for  his  sweet  theory  that  the  individual 
gift,  the  friendship's  offering,  was,  by  a  rigorous 
law  of  nature,  a  foredoomed  aberration,  and  that 
the  more  it  was  so  the  more  it  showed,  and  the  more 
one  cherished  it  for  showing,  how  friendly  it  had 
been.  The  infirmity  of  art  was  the  candour  of  affec 
tion,  the  grossness  of  pedigree  the  refinement  of 
sympathy;  the  ugliest  objects,  in  fact,  as  a  general 

162 


THE  PRINCESS 

thing,  were  the  bravest,  the  tenderest  mementos,  and, 
as  such,  figured  in  glass  cases  apart,  worthy  doubt 
less  of  the  home,  but  not  worthy  of  the  temple — 
dedicated  to  the  grimacing,  not  to  the  clear-faced, 
gods.  She  herself,  naturally,  through  the  past  years, 
had  come  to  be  much  represented  in  those  recep 
tacles;  against  the  thick,  locked  panes  of  which  she 
still  liked  to  flatten  her  nose,  finding  in  its  place, 
each  time,  everything  she  had  on  successive  anni 
versaries  tried  to  believe  he  might  pretend,  at  her  sug 
gestion,  to  be  put  off  with,  or  at  least  think  curious. 
She  was  now  ready  to  try  it  again:  they  had  always, 
with  his  pleasure  in  her  pretence  and  her  pleasure 
in  his,  with  the  funny  betrayal  of  the  sacrifice  to 
domestic  manners  on  either  side,  played  the  game 
so  happily.  To  this  end,  on  her  way  home,  she 
had  loitered  everywhere;  quite  too  deludedly  among 
the  old  books  and  the  old  prints,  which  had  yielded 
nothing  to  her  purpose,  but  with  a  strange  inconse 
quence  in  one  of  the  other  shops,  that  of  a  small  anti 
quarian,  a  queer  little  foreign  man,  who  had  shown 
her  a  number  of  things,  shown  her  finally  some 
thing  that,  struck  with  it  as  rather  a  rarity  and 
thinking  it  would,  compared  to  some  of  her  ventures, 
quite  superlatively  do,  she  had  bought — bought 
really,  when  it  came  to  that,  for  a  price.  "It  appears 
now  it  won't  do  at  all,"  said  Maggie,  "something 
has  happened  since  that  puts  it  quite  out  of  the 
question.  I  had  only  my  day  of  satisfaction  in  it, 
but  I  feel,  at  the  same  time,  as  I  keep  it  here  before 
me,  that  I  wouldn't  have  missed  it  for  the  world." 

163 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

She  had  talked,  from  the  first  of  her  friend's  entrance, 
coherently  enough,  even  with  a  small  quaver  that 
overstated  her  calm;  but  she  held  her  breath  every  few 
seconds,  as  if  for  deliberation  and  to  prove  she  didn't 
pant — all  of  which  marked  for  Fanny  the  depth  of 
her  commotion:  her  reference  to  her  thought  about 
her  father,  about  her  chance  to  pick  up  something 
that  might  divert  him,  her  mention,  in  fine,  of  his 
fortitude  under  presents,  having  meanwhile,  nat 
urally,  it  should  be  said,  much  less  an  amplitude  of 
insistence  on  the  speaker's  lips  than  a  power  to  pro 
duce  on  the  part  of  the  listener  herself  the  prompt 
response  and  full  comprehension  of  memory  and 
sympathy,  of  old  amused  observation.  The  picture 
was  filled  out  by  the  latter's  fond  fancy.  But  Maggie 
was  at  any  rate  under  arms;  she  knew  what  she  was 
doing  and  had  already  her  plan — a  plan  for  making, 
for  allowing,  as  yet,  "no  difference";  in  accordance 
with  which  she  would  still  dine  out,  and  not  with 
red  eyes,  nor  convulsed  features,  nor  neglected  items 
of  appearance,  nor  anything  that  would  raise  a  ques 
tion.  Yet  there  was  some  knowledge  that,  exactly 
to  this  support  of  her  not  breaking  down,  she  desired, 
she  required,  possession  of;  and,  with  the  sinister 
rise  and  fall  of  lightning  unaccompanied  by  thunder, 
it  played  before  Mrs.  Assingham's  eyes  that  she  her 
self  should  have,  at  whatever  risk  or  whatever  cost, 
to  supply  her  with  the  stuff  of  her  need.  All  our 
friend's  instinct  was  to  hold  off  from  this  till  she 
should  see  what  the  ground  would  bear;  she  would 
take  no  step  nearer  unless  intelligibly  to  meet  her, 

164 


THE  PRINCESS 

and,  awkward  though  it  might  be  to  hover  there  only 
pale  and  distorted,  with  mere  imbecilities  of  vague 
ness,  there  was  a  quality  of  bald  help  in  the  fact  of 
not  as  yet  guessing  what  such  an  ominous  start  could 
lead  to.  She  caught,  however,  after  a  second's 
thought,  at  the  Princess's  allusion  to  her  lost  re 
assurance. 

"You  mean  you  were  so  at  your  ease  on  Monday 
— the  night  you  dined  with  us?" 

"I  was  very  happy  then,"  said  Maggie. 

"Yes — we  thought  you  so  gay  and  so  brilliant." 
Fanny  felt  it  feeble,  but  she  went  on.  "We  were  so 
glad  you  were  happy." 

Maggie  stood  a  moment,  at  first  only  looking  at 
her.  "You  thought  me  all  right,  eh?" 

"Surely,  dearest;  we  thought  you  all  right." 

"Well,  I  daresay  it  was  natural;  but  in  point  of  fact 
I  never  was  more  wrong  in  my  life.  For,  all  the 
while,  if  you  please,  this  was  brewing." 

Mrs.  Assingham  indulged,  as  nearly  as  possible  to 
luxury,  her  vagueness.  "  'This' ?" 

"That!"  replied  the  Princess,  whose  eyes,  her  com 
panion  now  saw,  had  turned  to  an  object  on  the 
chimney-piece  of  the  room,  of  which,  among  so  many 
precious  objects — the  Ververs,  wherever  they  might 
be,  always  revelled  peculiarly  in  matchless  old  man 
tel-ornaments — her  visitor  had  not  taken  heed. 

"Do  you  mean  the  gilt  cup?" 

"I  mean  the  gilt  cup." 

The  piece  now  recognised  by  Fanny  as  new  to 
her  own  vision  was  a  capacious  bowl,  of  old-looking, 

165 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

rather  strikingly  yellow  gold,  mounted,  by  a  short 
stem,  on  an  ample  foot,  which  held  a  central  position 
above  the  fire-place,  where,  to  allow  it  the  better  to 
show,  a  clearance  had  been  made  of  other  objects, 
notably  of  the  Louis-Seize  clock  that  accompanied' 
the  candelabra.  This  latter  trophy  ticked  at  present 
on  the  marble  slab  of  a  commode  that  exactly 
matched  it  in  splendour  and  style.  Mrs.  Assingham 
took  it,  the  bowl,  as  a  fine  thing;  but  the  question 
was  obviously  not  of  its  intrinsic  value,  and  she  kept 
off  from  it,  admiring  it  at  a  distance.  "But  what  has 
that  to  do ?" 

"It  has  everything.  You'll  see."  With  which 
again,  however,  for  the  moment,  Maggie  attached  to 
her  strange  wide  eyes.  "He  knew  her  before — be 
fore  I  had  ever  seen  him."  . 

"  'He'   knew ?"     But    Fanny,   while   she    cast 

about  her  for  the  links  she  missed,  could  only 
echo  it. 

"Amerigo  knew  Charlotte — more  than  I  ever 
dreamed." 

Fanny  felt  then  it  was  stare  for  stare.  "But  surely 
you  always  knew  they  had  met." 

"I  didn't  understand.  I  knew  too  little.  Don't 
you  see  what  I  mean?"  the  Princess  asked. 

Mrs.  Assingham  wondered,  during  these  instants, 
how  much  she  even  now  knew;  it  had  taken  a  minute 
to  perceive  how  gently  she  was  speaking.  With  that 
perception  of  its  being  no  challenge  of  wrath,  no 
heat  of  the  deceived  soul,  but  only  a  free  exposure 
of  the  completeness  of  past  ignorance,  inviting  de- 

166 


THE   PRINCESS 

rision  even  if  it  must,  the  elder  woman  felt,  first,  a 
strange,  barely  credible  relief:  she  drew  in,  as  if  it 
had  been  the  warm  summer  scent  of  a  flower,  the 
sweet  certainty  of  not  meeting,  any  way  she  should 
turn,  any  consequence  of  judgment.  She  shouldn't 
be  judged — save  by  herself;  which  was  her  own 
wretched  business.  The  next  moment,  however,  at 
all  events,  she  blushed,  within,  for  her  immediate 
cowardice:  she  had  thought  of  herself,  thought  of 
"getting  off,"  before  so  much  as  thinking — that  is 
of  pitifully  seeing — that  she  was  in  presence  of  an 
appeal  that  was  all  an  appeal,  that  utterly  accepted 
its  necessity.  "In  a  general  way,  dear  child,  yes. 
But  not — a — in  connexion  with  what  you've  been 
telling  me." 

"They  were  intimate,  you  see.  Intimate,"  said  the 
Princess. 

Fanny  continued  to  face  her,  taking  from  her 
excited  eyes  this  history,  so  dim  and  faint  for  all 
her  anxious  emphasis,  of  the  far-away  other  time. 
"There's  always  the  question  of  what  one  con 
siders !" 

"What  one  considers  intimate?  Well,  I  know  what 
I  consider  intimate  now.  Too  intimate,"  said  Mag 
gie,  "to  let  me  know  anything  about  it." 

It  was  quiet — yes;  but  not  too  quiet  for  Fanny 
Assingham's  capacity  to  wince.  "Only  compatible 
with  letting  me,  you  mean?"  She  had  asked  it  after 
a  pause,  but  turning  again  to  the  new  ornament  of 
the  chimney  and  wondering,  even  while  she  took 
relief  from  it,  at  this  gap  in  her  experience.  "But 

167. 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

here  are  things,  my  dear,  of  which  my  ignorance  is 
perfect." 

"They  went  about  together — they're  known  to 
have  done  it.  And  I  don't  mean  only  before — I  mean 
after." 

"After?"  said  Fanny  Assingham. 

"Before  we  were  married — yes;  but  after  we  were 
engaged." 

"Ah,  I've  known  nothing  about  that!"  And  she 
said  it  with  a  braver  assurance — clutching,  with  com 
fort,  at  something  that  was  apparently  new  to  her. 

"That  bowl,"  Maggie  went  on,  "is,  so  strangely — 
too  strangely,  almost,  to  believe  at  this  time  of  day 
— the  proof.  They  were  together  all  the  while — up 
to  the  very  eve  of  our  marriage.  Don't  you 
remember  how  just  before  that  she  came  back,  so 
unexpectedly,  from  America?" 

The  question  had  for  Mrs.  Assingham — and 
whether  all  consciously  or  not — the  oddest  pathos 
of  simplicity.  "Oh  yes,  dear,  of  course  I  remember 
how  she  came  back  from  America — and  how  she 
stayed  with  us,  and  what  view  one  had  of  it." 

Maggie's  eyes  still,  all  the  time,  pressed  and  pene 
trated;  so  that,  during  a  moment,  just  here,  she  might 
have  given  the  little  flare,  have  made  the  little 
pounce,  of  asking  what  then  "one's"  view  had  been. 
To  the  small  flash  of  this  eruption  Fanny  stood,  for 
her  minute,  wittingly  exposed;  but  she  saw  it  as 
quickly  cease  to  threaten — quite  saw  the  Princess, 
even  though  in  all  her  pain,  refuse,  in  the  interest 
of  their  strange  and  exalted  bargain,  to  take  advan- 

168 


THE   PRINCESS 

tage  of  the  opportunity  for  planting  the  stab  of 
reproach,  the  opportunity  thus  coming  all  of  itself. 
She  saw  her — or  she  believed  she  saw  her — look  at 
her  chance  for  straight  denunciation,  look  at  it  and 
then  pass  it  by;  and  she  felt  herself,  with  this  fact, 
hushed  well-nigh  to  awe  at  the  lucid  higher  intention 
that  no  distress  could  confound  and  that  no  discovery 
— since  it  was,  however  obscurely,  a  case  of  "dis 
covery" — could  make  less  needful.  These  seconds 
were  brief — they  rapidly  passed;  but  they  lasted 
long  enough  to  renew  our  friend's  sense  of  her  own 
extraordinary  undertaking,  the  function  again  im 
posed  on  her,  the  answerability  again  drilled  into 
her,  by  this  intensity  of  intimation.  She  was  re 
minded  of  the  terms  on  which  she  was  let  off — her 
quantity  of  release  having  made  its  sufficient  show 
in  that  recall  of  her  relation  to  Charlotte's  old  re 
appearance;  and  deep  within  the  whole  impression 
glowed — ah,  so  inspiringly  when  it  came  to  that! — 
her  steady  view,  clear  from  the  first,  of  the  beauty 
of  her  companion's  motive.  It  was  like  a  fresh  sac 
rifice  for  a  larger  conquest — "Only  see  me  through 
now,  do  it  in  the  face  of  this  and  in  spite  of  it,  and 
I  leave  you  a  hand  of  which  the  freedom  isn't  to  be 
said!"  The  aggravation  of  fear — or  call  it,  appar 
ently,  of  knowledge — had  jumped  straight  into  its 
place  as  an  aggravation  above  all  for  her  father;  the 
effect  of  this  being  but  to  quicken  to  passion  her 
reasons  for  making  his  protectedness,  or  in  other 
words  the  forms  of  his  ignorance,  still  the  law  of 
her  attitude  and  the  key  to  her  solution.  She  kept 

169 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

as  tight  hold  of  these  reasons  and  these  forms,  in 
her  confirmed  horror,  as  the  rider  of  a  plunging  horse 
grasps  his  seat  with  his  knees;  and  she  might  abso 
lutely  have  been  putting  it  to  her  guest  that  she 
believed  she  could  stay  on  if  they  should  only  "meet" 
nothing  more.  Though  ignorant  still  of  what  she 
had  definitely  met  Fanny  yearned,  within,  over  her 
spirit;  and  so,  no  word  about  it  said,  passed,  through 
mere  pitying  eyes,  a  vow  to  walk  ahead  and,  at  cross 
roads,  with  a  lantern  for  the  darkness  and  wavings 
away  for  unadvised  traffic,  look  out  for  alarms. 
There  was  accordingly  no  wait  in  Maggie's  reply. 
"They  spent  together  hours — spent  at  least  a  morn 
ing — the  certainty  of  which  has  come  back  to  me 
now,  but  that  I  didn't  dream  of  it  at  the  time.  That 
cup  there  has  turned  witness — by  the  most  wonder 
ful  of  chances.  That's  why,  since  it  has  been  here, 
I've  stood  it  out  for  my  husband  to  see;  put  it  where 
it  would  meet  him,  almost  immediately,  if  he  should 
come  into  the  room.  I've  wanted  it  to  meet  him," 
she  went  on,  "and  I've  wanted  him  to  meet  it,  and 
to  be  myself  present  at  the  meeting.  But  that  hasn't 
taken  place  as  yet;  often  as  he  has  lately  been  in  the 
way  of  coming  to  see  me  here — yes,  in  particular 
lately — he  hasn't  showed  to-day."  It  was  with  her 
managed  quietness,  more  and  more,  that  she  talked — 
an  achieved  coherence  that  helped  her,  evidently, 
to  hear  and  to  watch  herself;  there  was  support,  and 
thereby  an  awful  harmony,  but  which  meant  a 
further  guidance,  in  the  facts  she  could  add  together. 
"It's  quite  as  if  he  had  an  instinct— something  that 

170 


THE   PRINCESS 

has  warned  him  off  or  made  him  uneasy.  He  doesn't 
quite  know,  naturally,  what  has  happened,  but 
guesses,  with  his  beautiful  cleverness,  that  something 
has,  and  isn't  in  a  hurry  to  be  confronted  with  it. 
So,  in  his  vague  fear,  he  keeps  off." 

"But  being  meanwhile  in  the  house ?" 

"I've  no  idea — not  having  seen  him  to-day,  by 
exception,  since  before  luncheon.  He  spoke  to  me 
then,"  the  Princess  freely  explained,  "of  a  ballot,  of 
great  importance,  at  a  club — for  somebody,  some 
personal  friend,  I  think,  who's  coming  up  and  is  sup 
posed  to  be  in  danger.  To  make  an  effort  for  him 
he  thought  he  had  better  lunch  there.  You  see  the 
efforts  he  can  make" — for  which  Maggie  found  a 
smile  that  went  to  her  friend's  heart.  "He's  in  so 
many  ways  the  kindest  of  men.  But  it  was  hours 
ago." 

Mrs.  Assingham  thought.  "The  more  danger  then 
of  his  coming  in  and  finding  me  here.  I  don't  know, 
you  see,  what  you  now  consider  that  you've  ascer 
tained;  nor  anything  of  the  connexion  with  it  of 
that  object  that  you  declare  so  damning."  Her  eyes 
rested  on  this  odd  acquisition  and  then  quitted  it, 
went  back  to  it  and  again  turned  from  it:  it  was 
inscrutable  in  its  rather  stupid  elegance,  and  yet, 
from  the  moment  one  had  thus  appraised  it,  vivid 
and  definite  in  its  domination  of  the  scene.  Fanny 
could  no  more  overlook  it  now  than  she  could  have 
overlooked  a  lighted  Christmas-tree;  but  nervously 
and  all  in  vain  she  dipped  into  her  mind  for  some 
floating  reminiscence  of  it.  At  the  same  time  that 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

this  attempt  left  her  blank  she  understood  a  good 
deal,  she  even  not  a  little  shared,  the  Prince's  mystic 
apprehension.  The  golden  bowl  put  on,  under  con 
sideration,  a  sturdy,  a  conscious  perversity;  as  a 
"document,"  somehow,  it  was  ugly,  though  it  might 
have  a  decorative  grace.  "His  finding  me  here  in 
presence  of  it  might  be  more  flagrantly  disagreeable 
— for  all  of  us — than  you  intend  or  than  would  neces 
sarily  help  us.  And  I  must  take  time,  truly,  to 
understand  what  it  means." 

"You're  safe,  as  far  as  that  goes,"  Maggie  re 
turned;  "you  may  take  it  from  me  that  he  won't 
come  in,  and  that  I  shall  only  find  him  below,  waiting 
for  me,  when  I  go  down  to  the  carriage." 

Fanny  Assingham  took  it  from  her,  took  it  and 
more.  "We're  to  sit  together  at  the  Ambassador's 
then — or  at  least  you  two  are — with  this  new  com 
plication  thrust  up  before  you,  all  unexplained;  and  to 
look  at  each  other  with  faces  that  pretend,  for  the 
ghastly  hour,  not  to  be  seeing  it?" 

Maggie  looked  at  her  with  a  face  that  might  have 
been  the  one  she  was  preparing.  '  'Unexplained,' 
my  dear?  Quite  the  contrary — explained:  fully,  in 
tensely,  admirably  explained,  with  nothing  really  to 
add.  My  own  love" — she  kept  it  up — "I  don't  want 
anything  more.  I've  plenty  to  go  upon  and  to  do 
with,  as  it  is." 

Fanny  Assingham  stood  there  in  her  comparative 
darkness,  with  her  links,  verily,  still  missing;  but  the 
most  acceptable  effect  of  this  was,  singularly,  as  yet, 
a  cold  fear  of  getting  nearer  the  fact.  "But  when 

172 


THE  PRINCESS 

you  come  home ?  I  mean  he'll  come  up  with 

you  again.  Won't  he  see  it  then?" 

On  which  Maggie  gave  her,  after  an  instant's 
visible  thought,  the  strangest  of  slow  headshakes. 
"I  don't  know.  Perhaps  he'll  never  see  it — if  it  only 
stands  there  waiting  for  him.  He  may  never  again," 
said  the  Princess,  "come  into  this  room." 

Fanny  more  deeply  wondered.  "Never  again? 
Oh !" 

"Yes,  it  may  be.  How  do  I  know?  With  this!" 
she  quietly  went  on. 

She  had  not  looked  again  at  the  incriminating 
piece,  but  there  was  a  marvel  to  her  friend  in  the 
way  the  little  word  representing  it  seemed  to  express 
and  include  for  her  the  whole  of  her  situation.  "Then 
you  intend  not  to  speak  to  him ?" 

Maggie  waited.    "To  'speak' ?" 

"Well,  about  your  having  it  and  about  what  you 
consider  that  it  represents." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  that  I  shall  speak — if  he  doesn't. 
But  his  keeping  away  from  me  because  of  that — 
what  will  that  be  but  to  speak?  He  can't  say  or  do 
more.  It  won't  be  for  me  to  speak,"  Maggie  added 
in  a  different  tone,  one  of  the  tones  that  had  already 
so  penetrated  her  guest.  "It  will  be  for  me  to  listen." 

Mrs.  Assingham  turned  it  over.  "Then  it  all  de 
pends  on  that  object  that  you  regard,  for  your 
reasons,  as  evidence?" 

"I  think  I  may  say  that  7  depend  on  it.  I  can't," 
said  Maggie,  "treat  it  as  nothing  now." 

Mrs.  Assingham,  at  this,  went  closer  to  the  cup 
173 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

on  the  chimney — quite  liking  to  feel  that  she  did  so, 
moreover,  without  going  closer  to  her  companion's 
vision.  She  looked  at  the  precious  thing — if  precious 
it  was — found  herself  in  fact  eyeing  it  as  if,  by  her 
dim  solicitation,  to  draw  its  secret  from  it  rather  than 
suffer  the  imposition  of  Maggie's  knowledge.  It  was 
brave  and  rich  and  firm,  with  its  bold  deep  hollow; 
and,  without  this  queer  torment  about  it,  would, 
thanks  to  her  love  of  plenty  of  yellow,  figure  to  her 
as  an  enviable  ornament,  a  possession  really  desirable. 
She  didn't  touch  it,  but  if  after  a  minute  she  turned 
away  from  it  the  reason  was,  rather  oddly  and  sud 
denly,  in  her  fear  of  doing  so.  "Then  it  all  depends 
on  the  bowl?  I  mean  your  future  does?  For  that's 
what  it  comes  to,  I  judge." 

"What  it  comes  to,"  Maggie  presently  returned, 
"is  what  that  thing  has  put  me,  so  almost  miracu 
lously,  in  the  way  of  learning:  how  far  they  had 
originally  gone  together.  If  there  was  so  much  be 
tween  them  before,  there  can't — with  all  the  other 
appearances — not  be  a  great  deal  more  now."  And 
she  went  on  and  on;  she  steadily  made  her  points. 
"If  such  things  were  already  then  between  them  they 
make  all  the  difference  for  possible  doubt  of  what 
may  have  been  between  them  since.  If  there  had 
been  nothing  before  there  might  be  explanations.  But 
it  makes  to-day  too  much  to  explain.  I  mean  to 
explain  away,"  she  said. 

Fanny  Assingham  was  there  to  explain  away — of 
this  she  was  duly  conscious;  for  that  at  least  had  been 
true  up  to  now.  In  the  light,  however,  of  Maggie's 

174 


THE   PRINCESS 

demonstration  the  quantity,  even  without  her  taking 
as  yet  a  more  exact  measure,  might  well  seem  larger 
than  ever.  Besides  Which,  with  or  without  exactness, 
the  effect  of  each  successive  minute  in  the  place  was 
to  put  her  more  in  presence  of  what  Maggie  herself 
saw.  Maggie  herself  saw  the  truth,  and  that  was 
really,  while  they  remained  there  together,  enough 
for  Mrs.  Assingham's  relation  to  it.  There  was  a 
force  in  the  Princess's  mere  manner  about  it  that 
made  the  detail  of  what  she  knew  a  matter  of  minor 
importance.  Fanny  had  in  fact  something  like  a 
momentary  shame  over  her  own  need  of  asking  for 
this  detail.  "I  don't  pretend  to  repudiate,"  she  said 
after  a  little,  "my  own  impressions  of  the  different 
times  I  suppose  you  speak  of;  any  more,"  she  added, 
"than  I  can  forget  what  difficulties  and,  as  it  constant 
ly  seemed  to  me,  what  dangers,  every  course  of  action 
— whatever  I  should  decide  upon — made  for  me.  I 
tried,  I  tried  hard,  to  act  for  the  best.  And,  you 
know,"  she  next  pursued,  while,  at  the  sound  of  her 
own  statement,  a  slow  courage  and  even  a  faint 
warmth  of  conviction  came  back  to  her — "and,  you 
know,  I  believe  it's  what  I  shall  turn  out  to  have 
done." 

This  produced  a  minute  during  which  their  inter 
change,  though  quickened  and  deepened,  was  that  of 
silence  only,  and  the  long,  charged  look;  all  of  which 
found  virtual  consecration  when  Maggie  at  last 
spoke.  "I'm  sure  you  tried  to  act  for  the  best." 

It  kept  Fanny  Assingham  again  a  minute  in  silence. 
"I  never  thought,  dearest,  you  weren't  an  angel." 

175 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

Not,  however,  that  this  alone  was  much  help!  "It 
was  up  to  the  very  eve,  you  see,"  the  Princess  went 
on — "up  to  within  two  or  three  days  of  our  mar 
riage.  That,  that,  you  know !"  And  she  broke 

down  for  strangely  smiling. 

"Yes,  as  I  say,  it  was  while  she  was  with  me.  But 
I  didn't  know  it.  That  is,"  said  Fanny  Assingham, 
"I  didn't  know  of  anything  in  particular."  It 
sounded  weak — that  she  felt;  but  she  had  really  her 
point  to  make.  "What  I  mean  is  that  I  don't  know, 
for  knowledge,  now,  anything  I  didn't  then.  That's 
how  I  am."  She  still,  however,  floundered.  "I  mean 
it's  how  I  was." 

"But  don't  they,  how  you  were  and  how  you  are," 
Maggie  asked,  "come  practically  to  the  same  thing?" 
The  elder  woman's  words  had  struck  her  own  ear 
as  in  the  tone,  now  mistimed,  of  their  recent,  but 
all  too  factitious  understanding,  arrived  at  in  hours 
when,  as  there  was  nothing  susceptible  of  proof,  there 
was  nothing  definitely  to  disprove.  The  situation 
had  changed  by — well,  by  whatever  there  was,  by 
the  outbreak  of  the  definite;  and  this  could  keep 
Maggie  at  least  firm.  She  was  firm  enough  as  she 
pursued.  "It  was  on  the  whole  thing  that  Amerigo 
married  me."  With  which  her  eyes  had  their  turn 
again  at  her  damnatory  piece.  "And  it  was  on  that' 
— it  was  on  that!"  But  they  came  back  to  her  visitor. 
"And  it  was  on  it  all  that  father  married  her." 

Her  visitor  took  it  as  might  be.  "They  both 
married — ah,  that  you  must  believe! — with  the  high 
est  intentions." 

176 


THE  PRINCESS 

"Father  did  certainly!"  And  then,  at  the  renewal 
of  this  consciousness,  it  all  rolled  over  her.  "Ah,  to 
thrust  such  things  on  us,  to  do  them  here  between  us 
and  with  us,  day  after  day,  and  in  return,  in  re 
turn !  To  do  it  to  him — to  him,  to  him!" 

Fanny  hesitated.  "You  mean  it's  for  him  you 
most  suffer?"  And  then  as  the  Princess,  after  a  look, 
but  turned  away,  moving  about  the  room — which 
made  the  question  somehow  seem  a  blunder — "I 
ask,"  she  continued,  "because  I  think  everything, 
everything  we  now  speak  of,  may  be  for  him,  really 
may  be  made  for  him,  quite  as  if  it  hadn't  been." 

But  Maggie  had  the  next  moment  faced  about  as 
if  without  hearing  her.  "Father  did  it  for  me — did 
it  all  and  only  for  me." 

Mrs.  Assingham,  with  a  certain  promptness,  threw 
up  her  head;  but  she  faltered  again  before  she  spoke. 
"Well !" 

It  was  only  an  intended  word,  but  Maggie  showed 
after  an  instant  that  it  had  reached  her.  "Do 
you  mean  that  that's  the  reason,  that  that's  a 
reason ?" 

Fanny  at  first,  however,  feeling  the  response  in  this, 
didn't  say  all  she  meant;  she  said  for  the  moment 
something  else  instead.  "He  did  it  for  you — largely 
at  least  for  you.  And  it  was  for  you  that  I  did,  in  my 
smaller,  interested  way — well,  what  I  could  do.  For 
I  could  do  something,"  she  continued;  "I  thought  I 
saw  your  interest  as  he  himself  saw  it.  And  I  thought 
I  saw  Charlotte's.  I  believed  in  her." 

"And  7  believed  in  her,"  said  Maggie. 

VOL.  II.— ia  177 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

Mrs.  Assingham  waited  again;  but  she  presently 
pushed  on.  "She  believed  then  in  herself." 

"Ah?"  Maggie  murmured. 

Something  exquisite,  faintly  eager,  in  the  prompt 
simplicity  of  it,  supported  her  friend  further.  "And 
the  Prince  believed.  His  belief  was  real.  Just  as  he 
believed  in  himself." 

Maggie  spent  a  minute  in  taking  it  from  her.  "He 
believed  in  himself?" 

"Just  as  I  too  believed  in  him.  For  I  absolutely 
did,  Maggie."  To  which  Fanny  then  added:  "And 
I  believe  in  him  yet.  I  mean,"  she  subjoined — "well, 
I  mean  I  do" 

Maggie  again  took  it  from  her;  after  which  she 
was  again,  restlessly,  set  afloat.  Then  when  this  had 
come  to  an  end:  "And  do  you  believe  in  Charlotte 
yet?" 

Mrs.  Assingham  had  a  demur  that  she  felt  she  could 
now  afford.  "We'll  talk  of  Charlotte  some  other 
day.  They  both,  at  any  rate,  thought  themselves 
safe  at  the  time." 

"Then  why  did  they  keep  from  me  everything  I 
might  have  known?" 

Her  friend  bent  upon  her  the  mildest  eyes.  "Why 
did  I  myself  keep  it  from  you?" 

"Oh,  you  weren't,  for  honour,  obliged." 

"Dearest  Maggie,"  the  poor  woman  broke  out  on 
this,  "you  are  divine!" 

"They  pretended  to  love  me,"  the  Princess  went 
on.  "And  they  pretended  to  love  him." 

"And  pray  what  was  there  that  I  didn't  pretend?" 


THE  PRINCESS 

"Not,  at  any  rate,  to  care  for  me  as  you  cared  for 
Amerigo  and  for  Charlotte.  They  were  much  more  in 
teresting — it  was  perfectly  natural.  How  couldn't 
you  like  Amerigo?"  Maggie  continued. 

Mrs.  Assingham  gave  it  up.  "How  couldn't  I, 
how  couldn't  I?"  Then,  with  a  fine  freedom,  she 
went  all  her  way.  "How  can't  I,  how  can't  I?" 

It  fixed  afresh  Maggie's  wide  eyes  on  her.  "I  see 
— I  see.  Well,  it's  beautiful  for  you  to  be  able  to. 
And  of  course,"  she  added,  "you  wanted  to  help  Char 
lotte." 

"Yes" — Fanny  considered  it — "I  wanted  to  help 
Charlotte.  But  I  wanted  also,  you  see,  to  help  you 
— by  not  digging  up  a  past  that  I  believed,  with 
so  much  on  top  of  it,  solidly  buried.  I  wanted, 
as  I  still  want,"  she  richly  declared,  "to  help  every 
one." 

It  set  Maggie  once  more  in  movement — movement 
which,  however,  spent  itself  again  with  a  quick 
emphasis.  "Then  it's  a  good  deal  my  fault — if  every 
thing  really  began  so  well?" 

Fanny  Assingham  met  it  as  she  could.  "You've 
been  only  too  perfect.  You've  thought  only  too 
much " 

But  the  Princess  had  already  caught  at  the  words. 
"Yes — I've  thought  only  too  much!"  Yet  she  ap 
peared  to  continue,  for  the  minute,  full  of  that  fault. 
She  had  it  in  fact,  by  this  prompted  thought,  all  before 
her.  "Of  him,  dear  man,  of  him /" 

Her  friend,  able  to  take  in  thus  directly  her  vision 
of  her  father,  watched  her  with  a  new  suspense.  That 

179 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

way  might  safety  lie — it  was  like  a  wider  chink  of 
light.     "He  believed — with  a  beauty! — in  Charlotte." 

"Yes,  and  it  was  I  who  had  made  him  believe.  I 
didn't  mean  to,  at  the  time,  so  much;  for  I  had  no 
idea  then  of  what  was  coming.  But  I  did  it,  I  did  it!" 
the  Princess  declared. 

"With  a  beauty — ah,  with  a  beauty,  you  too!"  Mrs. 
Assingham  insisted. 

Maggie,  however,  was  seeing  for  herself — it  was 
another  matter,  "The  thing  was  that  he  made  her 
think  it  would  be  so  possible." 

Fanny  again  hesitated.  "The  Prince  made  her 
think ?" 

Maggie  stared — she  had  meant  her  father.  But 
her  vision  seemed  to  spread.  "They  both  made  her 
think.  She  wouldn't  have  thought  without  them." 

"Yet  Amerigo's  good  faith,"  Mrs.  Assingham  in 
sisted,  "was  perfect.  And  there  was  nothing,  all  the 
more,"  she  added,  "against  your  father's." 

The  remark,  however,  kept  Maggie  for  a  moment 
still.  "Nothing  perhaps  but  his  knowing  that  she 
knew." 

"  'Knew' ?" 

"That  he  was  doing  it,  so  much,  for  me.  To  what 
extent,"  she  suddenly  asked  of  her  friend,  "do  you 
think  he  was  aware  that  she  knew?" 

"Ah,  who  can  say  what  passes  between  people  in 
such  a  relation?  The  only  thing  one  can  be  sure  of 
is  that  he  was  generous."  And  Mrs.  Assingham  con 
clusively  smiled.  "He  doubtless  knew  as  much  as 
was  right  for  himself." 

180 


THE  PRINCESS 

"As  much,  that  is,  as  was  right  for  her." 

"Yes  then — as  was  right  for  her.  The  point  is," 
Fanny  declared,  "that,  whatever  his  knowledge,  it 
made,  all  the  way  it  went,  for  his  good  faith." 

Maggie  continued  to  gaze,  and  her  friend  now 
fairly  waited  on  her  successive  movements.  "Isn't 
the  point,  very  considerably,  that  his  good  faith  must 
have  been  his  faith  in  her  taking  almost  as  much  in 
terest  in  me  as  he  himself  took?" 

Fanny  Assingham  thought.  "He  recognised,  he 
adopted,  your  long  friendship.  But  he  founded  on  it 
no  selfishness." 

"No,"  said  Maggie  with  still  deeper  consideration: 
"he  counted  her  selfishness  out  almost  as  he  counted 
his  own." 

"So  you  may  say." 

"Very  well,"  Maggie  went  on;  "if  he  had  none  of 
his  own,  he  invited  her,  may  have  expected  her,  on  her 
side,  to  have  as  little.  And  she  may  only  since  have 
found  that  out." 

Mrs.  Assingham  looked  blank.     "Since ?" 

"And  he  may  have  become  aware,"  Maggie  pur 
sued,  "that  she  has  found  it  out.  That  she  has  taken 
the  measure,  since  their  marriage,"  she  explained,  "of 
how  much  he  had  asked  of  her — more,  say,  than  she 
had  understood  at  the  time.  He  may  have  made 
out  at  last  how  such  a  demand  was,  in  the  long  run, 
to  affect  her." 

"He  may  have  done  many  things,"  Mrs.  Assing 
ham  responded;  "but  there's  one  thing  he  certainly 
won't  have  done.  He'll  never  have  shown  that  he 

181 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

expected  of  her  a  quarter  as  much  as  she  must  have 
understood  he  was  to  give." 

"I've  often  wondered,"  Maggie  mused,  "what 
Charlotte  really  understood.  But  it's  one  of  the 
things  she  has  never  told  me." 

"Then  as  it's  one  of  the  things  she  has  never  told 
me  either,  we  shall  probably  never  know  it;  and  we 
may  regard  it  as  none  of  our  business.  There  are 
many  things,"  said  Mrs.  Assingham,  "that  we  shall 
never  know." 

Maggie  took  it  in  with  a  long  reflection.    "Never." 

"But  there  are  others,"  her  friend  went  on,  "that 
stare  us  in  the  face  and  that — under  whatever  dif 
ficulty  you  may  feel  you  labour — may  now  be 
enough  for  us.  Your  father  has  been  extraordi 
nary." 

It  had  been  as  if  Maggie  were  feeling  her  way;  but 
she  rallied  to  this  with  a  rush.  "Extraordinary." 

"Magnificent,"  said  Fanny  Assingham. 

Her  companion  held  tight  to  it.    "Magnificent." 

"Then  he'll  do  for  himself  whatever  there  may  be 
to  do.  What  he  undertook  for  you  he'll  do  to  the 
end.  He  didn't  undertake  it  to  break  down;  in  what 
— quiet,  patient,  exquisite  as  he  is — did  he  ever  break 
down?  He  had  never  in  his  life  proposed  to  himself 
to  have  failed,  and  he  won't  have  done  it  on  this 
occasion." 

"Ah,  this  occasion!" — and  Maggie's  wail  showed 
her,  of  a  sudden,  thrown  back  on  it.  "Am  I  in  the 
least  sure  that,  with  everything,  he  even  knows  what 
it  is?  And  yet  am  I  in  the  least  sure  he  doesn't?" 

182 


THE  PRINCESS 

"If  he  doesn't  then,  so  much  the  better.  Leave 
him  alone." 

"Do  you  mean  give  him  up?" 

"Leave  her,"  Fanny  Assingham  went  on.  "Leave 
her  to  him." 

Maggie  looked  at  her  darkly.  "Do  you  mean  leave 
him  to  her?  After  this?" 

"After  everything.  Aren't  they,  for  that  matter, 
intimately  together  now?" 

"  'Intimately' ?    How  do  I  know?" 

But  Fanny  kept  it  up.  "Aren't  you  and  your  hus 
band — in  spite  of  everything?" 

Maggie's  eyes  still  further,  if  possible,  dilated.  "It 
remains  to  be  seen!" 

"If  you're  not  then,  where's  your  faith?" 

"In  my  husband ?" 

Mrs.  Assingham  but  for  an  instant  hesitated.  "In 
your  father.  It  all  comes  back  to  that.  Rest  on  it." 

"On  his  ignorance?" 

Fanny  met  it  again.  "On  whatever  he  may  offer 
you.  Take  that." 

"Take  it ?"    Maggie  stared. 

Mrs.  Assingham  held  up  her  head.  "And  be  grate 
ful."  On  which,  for  a  minute,  she  let  the  Princess 
face  her.  "Do  you  see?" 

"I  see,"  said  Maggie  at  last. 

"Then  there  you  are."  But  Maggie  had  turned 
away,  moving  to  the  window,  as  if  still  to  keep  some 
thing  in  her  face  from  sight.  She  stood  there  with 
her  eyes  on  the  street  while  Mrs.  Assingham's  re 
verted  to  that  complicating  object  on  the  chimney 

'83 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

as  to  which  her  condition,  so  oddly  even  to  herself, 
was  that  both  of  recurrent  wonder  and  recurrent  pro 
test.  She  went  over  it,  looked  at  it  afresh  and  yielded 
now  to  her  impulse  to  feel  it  in  her  hands.  She  laid 
them  on  it,  lifting  it  up,  and  was  surprised,  thus,  with 
the  weight  of  it — she  had  seldom  handled  so  much 
massive  gold.  That  effect  itself  somehow  prompted 
her  to  further  freedom  and  presently  to  saying:  "I 
don't  believe  in  this,  you  know." 

It  brought  Maggie  round  to  her.  "Don't  believe 
in  it?  You  will  when  I  tell  you." 

"Ah,  tell  me  nothing!  I  won't  have  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Assingham.  She  kept  the  cup  in  her  hand,  held  it 
there  in  a  manner  that  gave  Maggie's  attention  to 
her,  she  saw  the  next  moment,  a  quality  of  excited 
suspense.  This  suggested  to  her,  oddly,  that  she 
had,  with  the  liberty  she  was  taking,  an  air  of  inten 
tion,  and  the  impression  betrayed  by  her  companion's 
eyes  grew  more  distinct  in  a  word  of  warning.  "It's 
of  value,  but  its  value's  impaired,  I've  learned,  by  a 
crack." 

"A  crack?— in  the  gold ?" 

"It  isn't  gold."  With  which,  somewhat  strangely, 
Maggie  smiled.  "That's  the  point." 

"What  is  it  then?" 

"It's  glass — and  cracked,  under  the  gilt,  as  I  say, 
at  that." 

-Glass?— of  this  weight?" 

"Well,"  said  Maggie,  "it's  crystal — and  was  once, 
I  suppose,  precious.  But  what,"  she  then  asked,  "do 
you  mean  to  do  with  it?" 

184 


THE  PRINCESS 

She  had  come  away  from  her  window,  one  of  the 
three  by  which  the  wide  room,  enjoying  an  advan 
tageous  "back,"  commanded  the  western  sky  and 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  evening  flush;  while  Mrs. 
Assingham,  possessed  of  the  bowl,  and  possessed  too 
of  this  indication  of  a  flaw,  approached  another  for 
the  benefit  of  the  slowly-fading  light.  Here,  thumb 
ing  the  singular  piece,  weighing  it,  turning  it  over, 
and  growing  suddenly  more  conscious,  above  all,  of 
an  irresistible  impulse,  she  presently  spoke  again.  "A 
crack?  Then  your  whole  idea  has  a  crack." 

Maggie,  by  this  time  at  some  distance  from  her, 
waited  a  moment.  "If  you  mean  by  my  idea  the 
knowledge  that  has  come  to  me  that " 

But  Fanny,  with  decision,  had  already  taken  her 
up.  "There's  only  one  knowledge  that  concerns  us 
— one  fact  with  which  we  can  have  anything  to  do." 

"Which  one,  then?" 

"The  fact  that  your  husband  has  never,  never, 

never !"  But  the  very  gravity  of  this  statement, 

while  she  raised  her  eyes  to  her  friend  across  the 
room,  made  her  for  an  instant  hang  fire. 

"Well,  never  what?" 

"Never  been  half  so  interested  in  you  as  now. 
But  don't  you,  my  dear,  really  feel  it?" 

Maggie  considered.  "Oh,  I  think  what  I've  told 
you  helps  me  to  feel  it.  His  having  to-day  given  up 
even  his  forms;  his  keeping  away  from  me;  his  not 
having  come."  And  she  shook  her  head  as  against 
all  easy  glosses.  "It  is  because  of  that,  you  know." 

"Well  then,  if  it's  because  of  this !"  And 

185 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

Fanny  Assingham,  who  had  been  casting  about  her 
and  whose  inspiration  decidedly  had  come,  raised  the 
cup  in  her  two  hands,  raised  it  positively  above  her 
head,  and  from  under  it,  solemnly,  smiled  at  the  Prin 
cess  as  a  signal  of  intention.  So  for  an  instant,  full  of 
her  thought  and  of  her  act,  she  held  the  precious  ves 
sel,  and  then,  with  due  note  taken  of  the  margin  of  the 
polished  floor,  bare,  fine  and  hard  in  the  embrasure 
of  her  window,  she  dashed  it  boldly  to  the  ground, 
where  she  had  the  thrill  of  seeing  it,  with  the  violence 
of  the  crash,  lie  shattered.  She  had  flushed  with 
the  force  of  her  effort,  as  Maggie  had  flushed  with 
wonder  at  the  sight,  and  this  high  reflection  in  their 
faces  was  all  that  passed  between  them  for  a  minute 
more.  After  which,  "Whatever  you  meant  by  it — 
and  I  don't  want  to  know  now — has  ceased  to  exist," 
Mrs.  Assingham  said. 

"And  what  in  the  world,  my  dear,  did  you  mean 
by  it?" — that  sound,  as  at  the  touch  of  a  spring,  rang 
out  as  the  first  effect  of  Fanny's  speech.  It  broke 
upon  the  two  women's  absorption  with  a  sharpness 
almost  equal  to  the  smash  of  the  crystal,  for  the  door 
of  the  room  had  been  opened  by  the  Prince  without 
their  taking  heed.  He  had  apparently  had  time, 
moreover,  to  catch  the  conclusion  of  Fanny's  act; 
his  eyes  attached  themselves,  through  the  large 
space  allowing  just  there,  as  happened,  a  free  view, 
to  the  shining  fragments  at  this  lady's  feet.  His 
question  had  been  addressed  to  his  wife,  but  he 
moved  his  eyes  immediately  afterwards  to  those  of 
her  visitor,  whose  own  then  held  them  in  a  manner 

186 


THE  PRINCESS 

of  which  neither  party  had  been  capable,  doubtless, 
for  mute  penetration,  since  the  hour  spent  by  him 
in  Cadogan  Place  on  the  eve  of  his  marriage  and 
the  afternoon  of  Charlotte's  reappearance.  Some 
thing  now  again  became  possible  for  these 
communicants,  under  the  intensity  of  their  pressure, 
something  that  took  up  that  tale  and  that  might 
have  been  a  redemption  of  pledges  then  exchanged. 
This  rapid  play  of  suppressed  appeal  and  disguised 
response  lasted  indeed  long  enough  for  more  results 
than  one — long  enough  for  Mrs.  Assingham  to 
measure  the  feat  of  quick  self-recovery,  possibly 
therefore  of  recognition  still  more  immediate,  accom 
panying  Amerigo's  vision  and  estimate  of  the 
evidence  with  which  she  had  been — so  admirably, 
she  felt  as  she  looked  at  him — inspired  to  deal.  She 
looked  at  him  and  looked  at  him — there  were  so 
many  things  she  wanted,  on  the  spot,  to  say.  But 
Maggie  was  looking  too — and  was  moreover  looking 
at  them  both;  so  that  these  things,  for  the  elder 
woman,  quickly  enough  reduced  themselves  to  one. 
She  met  his  question — not  too  late,  since,  in  their 
silence,  it  had  remained  in  the  air.  Gathering  her 
self  to  go,  leaving  the  golden  bowl  split  into  three 
pieces  on  the  ground,  she  simply  referred  him  to  his 
wife.  She  should  see  them  later,  they  would  all  meet 
soon  again;  and  meanwhile,  as  to  what  Maggie  had 
meant — she  said,  in  her  turn,  from  the  door — why, 
Maggie  herself  was  doubtless  by  this  time  ready  to 
tell  him. 


187 


XXXIV 

LEFT  with  her  husband,  Maggie,  however,  for  the 
time,  said  nothing ;  she  only  felt,  on  the  spot,  a  strong, 
sharp  wish  not  to  see  his  face  again  till  he  should  have 
had  a  minute  to  arrange  it.  She  had  seen  it  enough 
for  her  temporary  clearness  and  her  next  movement — 
seen  it  as  it  showed  during  the  stare  of  surprise  that 
followed  his  entrance.  Then  it  was  that  she  knew  how 
hugely  expert  she  had  been  made,  for  judging  it 
quickly,  by  that  vision  of  it,  indelibly  registered  for 
reference,  that  had  flashed  a  light  into  her  troubled 
soul  the  night  of  his  late  return  from  Matcham.  The 
expression  worn  by  it  at  that  juncture,  for  however 
few  instants,  had  given  her  a  sense  of  its  possibilities, 
one  of  the  most  relevant  of  which  might  have  been 
playing  up  for  her,  before  the  consummation  of  Fanny 
Assingham's  retreat,  just  long  enough  to  be  recog 
nised.  What  she  had  recognised  in  it  was  his  recog 
nition,  the  result  of  his  having  been  forced,  by  the  flush 
of  their  visitor's  attitude  and  the  unextinguished  re 
port  of  her  words,  to  take  account  of  the  flagrant  signs 
of  the  accident,  of  the  incident,  on  which  he  had  unex 
pectedly  dropped.  He  had,  not  unnaturally,  failed  to 
see  this  occurrence  represented  by  the  three  fragments 
of  an  object  apparently  valuable  which  lay  there  on 

1 88 


THE  PRINCESS 

the  floor  and  which,  even  across  the  width  of  the  room, 
his  kept  interval,  reminded  him,  unmistakably  though 
confusedly,  of  something  known,  some  other  unforgot- 
ten  image.  That  was  a  mere  shock,  that  was  a  pain — 
as  if  Fanny's  violence  had  been  a  violence  redoubled 
and  acting  beyond  its  intention,  a  violence  calling  up 
the  hot  blood  as  a  blow  across  the  mouth  might  have 
called  it.  Maggie  knew  as  she  turned  away  from  him 
that  she  didn't  want  his  pain;  what  she  wanted  was 
her  own  simple  certainty — not  the  red  mark  of  con 
viction  flaming  there  in  his  beauty.  If  she  could  have 
gone  on  with  bandaged  eyes  she  would  have  liked  that 
best;  if  it  were  a  question  of  saying  what  she  now, 
apparently,  should  have  to,  and  of  taking  from  him 
what  he  would  say,  any  blindness  that  might  wrap  it 
would  be  the  nearest  approach  to  a  boon. 

She  went  in  silence  to  where  her  friend — never,  in 
intention,  visibly,  so  much  her  friend  as  at  that  moment 
— had  braced  herself  to  so  amazing  an  energy,  and 
there,  under  Amerigo's  eyes,  she  picked  up  the  shining 
pieces.  Bedizened  and  jewelled,  in  her  rustling 
finery,  she  paid,  with  humility  of  attitude,  this  prompt 
tribute  to  order — only  to  find,  however,  that  she  could 
carry  but  two  of  the  fragments  at  once.  She  brought 
them  over  to  the  chimney-piece,  to  the  conspicuous 
place  occupied  by  the  cup  before  Fanny's  appropriation 
of  it,  and,  after  laying  them  carefully  down,  went  back 
for  what  remained,  the  solid  detached  foot.  With  this 
she  returned  to  the  mantel-shelf,  placing  it  with  delib 
eration  in  the  centre  and  then,  for  a  minute,  occupy 
ing  herself  as  with  the  attempt  to  fit  the  other  morsels 

189 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

together.  The  split,  determined  by  the  latent  crack, 
was  so  sharp  and  so  neat  that  if  there  had  been  any 
thing  to  hold  them  the  bowl  might  still,  quite  beauti 
fully,  a  few  steps  away,  have  passed  for  uninjured. 
But,  as  there  was,  naturally,  nothing  to  hold  them  but 
Maggie's  hands,  during  the  few  moments  the  latter 
were  so  employed,  she  could  only  lay  the  almost  equal 
parts  of  the  vessel  carefully  beside  their  pedestal  and 
leave  them  thus  before  her  husband's  eyes.  She  had 
proceeded  without  words,  but  quite  as  if  with  a  sought 
effect — in  spite  of  which  it  had  all  seemed  to  her  to 
take  a  far  longer  time  than  anything  she  had  ever  so 
quickly  accomplished.  Amerigo  said  nothing  either — 
though  it  was  true  that  his  silence  had  the  gloss  of  the 
warning  she  doubtless  appeared  to  admonish  him  to 
take :  it  was  as  if  her  manner  hushed  him  to  the  proper 
observation  of  what  she  was  doing.  He  should  have 
no  doubt  of  it  whatever :  she  knew,  and  her  broken 
bowl  was  proof  that  she  knew — yet  the  least  part  of 
her  desire  was  to  make  him  waste  words.  He  would 
have  to  think — this  she  knew  even  better  still ;  and  all 
she  was  for  the  present  concerned  with  was  that  he 
should  be  aware.  She  had  taken  him  for  aware  all 
day,  or  at  least  for  obscurely  and  instinctively  anxious 
— as  to  that  she  had  just  committed  herself  to  Fanny 
Assingham ;  but  what  she  had  been  wrong  about  was 
the  effect  of  his  anxiety.  His  fear  of  staying  away, 
as  a  marked  symptom,  had  at  least  proved  greater  than 
his  fear  of  coming  in ;  he  had  come  in  even  at  the  risk 
of  bringing  it  with  him — and,  ah,  what  more  did  she 
require  now  than  her  sense,  established  within  the  first 

190 


THE  PRINCESS 

minute  or  two,  that  he  had  brought  it,  however  he 
might  be  steadying  himself  against  dangers  of  betrayal 
by  some  wrong  word,  and  that  it  was  shut  in  there 
between  them,  the  successive  moments  throbbing  under 
it  the  while  as  the  pulse  of  fever  throbs  under  the 
doctor's  thumb? 

Maggie's  sense,  in  fine,  in  his  presence,  was  that 
though  the  bowl  had  been  broken,  her  reason  hadn't; 
the  reason  for  which  she  had  made  up  her  mind,  the 
reason  for  which  she  had  summoned  her  friend,  the 
reason  for  which  she  had  prepared  the  place  for  her 
husband's  eyes;  it  was  all  one  reason,  and,  as  her  in 
tense  little  clutch  held  the  matter,  what  had  happened 
by  Fanny's  act  and  by  his  apprehension  of  it  had  not  in 
the  least  happened  to  her,  but  absolutely  and  directly 
to  himself,  as  he  must  proceed  to  take  in.  There  it  was 
that  her  wish  for  time  interposed — time  for  Amerigo's 
use,  not  for  hers,  since  she,  for  ever  so  long  now,  for 
hours  and  hours  as  they  seemed,  had  been  living  with 
eternity;  with  which  she  would  continue  to  live.  She 
wanted  to  say  to  him  "Take  it,  take  it,  take  all  you 
need  of  it ;  arrange  yourself  so  as  to  suffer  least,  or  to 
be,  at  any  rate,  least  distorted  and  disfigured.  Only 
see,  see  that  7  see,  and  make  up  your  mind,  on  this  new 
basis,  at  your  convenience.  Wait — it  won't  be  long — 
till  you  can  confer  again  with  Charlotte,  for  you'll  do 
it  much  better  then — more  easily  to  both  of  us.  Above 
all  don't  show  me,  till  you've  got  it  well  under,  the 
dreadful  blur,  the  ravage  of  suspense  and  embarrass 
ment,  produced,  and  produced  by  my  doing,  in  your 
personal  serenity,  your  incomparable  superiority." 

191      - 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

After  she  had  squared  again  her  little  objects  on  the 
chimney,  she  was  within  an  ace,  in  fact,  of  turning  on 
him  with  that  appeal ;  besides  its  being  lucid  for  her,  all 
the  while,  that  the  occasion  was  passing,  that  they  were 
dining  out,  that  he  wasn't  dressed,  and  that,  though 
she  herself  was,  she  was  yet,  in  all  probability,  so  hor 
ribly  red  in  the  face  and  so  awry,  in  many  ways,  with 
agitation,  that  in  view  of  the  Ambassador's  company, 
of  possible  comments  and  constructions,  she  should 
need,  before  her  glass,  some  restoration  of  appearances. 
Amerigo,  meanwhile,  after  all,  could  clearly  make 
the  most  of  her  having  enjoined  on  him  to  wait — sug 
gested  it  by  the  positive  pomp  of  her  dealings  with  the 
smashed  cup ;  to  wait,  that  is,  till  she  should  pronounce 
as  Mrs.  Assingham  had  promised  for  her.  This  de 
lay,  again,  certainly  tested  her  presence  of  mind — 
though  that  strain  was  not  what  presently  made  her 
speak.  Keep  her  eyes,  for  the  time,  from  her  hus 
band's  as  she  might,  she  soon  found  herself  much  more 
drivingly  conscious  of  the  strain  on  his  own  wit. 
There  was  even  a  minute,  when  her  back  was  turned 
to  him,  during  which  she  knew  once  more  the  strange 
ness  of  her  desire  to  spare  him,  a  strangeness  that  had 
already,  fifty  times,  brushed  her,  in  the  depth  of  her 
trouble,  as  with  the  wild  wing  of  some  bird  of  the 
air  who  might  blindly  have  swooped  for  an  instant 
into  the  shaft  of  a  well,  darkening  there  by  his  momen 
tary  flutter  the  far-off  round  of  sky.  It  was  extraor 
dinary,  this  quality  in  the  taste  of  her  wrong  which 
made  her  completed  sense  of  it  seem  rather  to  soften 
than  to  harden  and  it  was  the  more  extraordinary  the 

192 


THE  PRINCESS 

more  she  had  to  recognise  it ;  for  what  it  came  to  was 
that  seeing  herself  finally  sure,  knowing  everything, 
having  the  fact,  in  all  its  abomination,  so  utterly  before 
her  that  there  was  nothing  else  to  add — what  it  came 
to  was  that,  merely  by  being  with  him  there  in  silence, 
she  felt,  within  her,  the  sudden  split  between  convic 
tion  and  action.  They  had  begun  to  cease,  on  the  spot, 
surprisingly,  to  be  connected;  conviction,  that  is, 
budged  no  inch,  only  planting  its  feet  the  more  firmly 
in  the  soil — but  action  began  to  hover  like  some  lighter 
and  larger,  but  easier  form,  excited  by  its  very  power 
to  keep  above  ground.  It  would  be  free,  it  would  be 
independent,  it  would  go  in — wouldn't  it? — for  some 
prodigious  and  superior  adventure  of  its  own.  What 
would  condemn  it,  so  to  speak,  to  the  responsibility  of 
freedom — this  glimmered  on  Maggie  even  now — was 
the  possibility,  richer  with  every  lapsing  moment,  that 
her  husband  would  have,  on  the  whole  question,  a  new 
need  of  her,  a  need  which  was  in  fact  being  born 
between  them  in  these  very  seconds.  It  struck  her 
truly  as  so  new  that  he  would  have  felt  hitherto  none 
to  compare  with  it  at  all ;  would  indeed,  absolutely,  by 
this  circumstance,  be  really  needing  her  for  the  first 
time  in  their  whole  connection.  No,  he  had  used  her, 
he  had  even  exceedingly  enjoyed  her,  before  this;  but 
there  had  been  no  precedent  for  that  character  of  a 
proved  necessity  to  him  which  she  was  rapidly  taking 
on.  The  immense  advantage  of  this  particular  clue, 
moreover,  was  that  she  should  have  now  to  arrange, 
to  alter,  to  falsify  nothing ;  should  have  to  be  but  con 
sistently  simple  and  straight.  She  asked  herself,  with 
VOL.  II.— 13  193 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

concentration,  while  her  back  was  still  presented,  what 
would  be  the  very  ideal  of  that  method;  after  which, 
the  next  instant,,  it  had  all  come  to  her  and  she  had 
turned  round  upon  him  for  the  application.  "Fanny 
Assingham  broke  it — knowing  it  had  a  crack  and  that 
it  would  go  if  she  used  sufficient  force.  She  thought, 
when  I  had  told  her,  that  that  would  be  the  best  thing 
to  do  with  it — thought  so  from  her  own  point  of  view. 
That  hadn't  been  at  all  my  idea,  but  she  acted  before  I 
understood.  I  had,  on  the  contrary,"  she  explained, 
"put  it  here,  in  full  view,  exactly  that  you  might 
see  it." 

He  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets ;  he  had  car 
ried  his  eyes  to  the  fragments  on  the  chimney-piece, 
and  she  could  already  distinguish  the  element  of  relief, 
absolutely  of  succour,  in  his  acceptance  from  her  of  the 
opportunity  to  consider  the  fruits  of  their  friend's  vio 
lence — every  added  inch  of  reflection  and  delay  having 
the  advantage,  from  this  point  on,  of  counting  for  him 
double.  It  had  operated  within  her  now  to  the  last 
intensity,  her  glimpse  of  the  precious  truth  that  by 
her  helping  him,  helping  him  to  help  himself,  as  it 
were,  she  should  help  him  to  help  her.  Hadn't  she 
fairly  got  into  his  labyrinth  with  him? — wasn't  she 
indeed  in  the  very  act  of  placing  herself  there,  for  him, 
at  its  centre  and  core,  whence,  on  that  definite  orien 
tation  and  by  an  instinct  all  her  own,  she  might 
securely  guide  him  out  of  it?  She  offered  him  thus, 
assuredly,  a  kind  of  support  that  was  not  to  have  been 
imagined  in  advance,  and  that  moreover  required — 
ah  most  truly! — some  close  looking  at  before  it  could 

194 


THE  PRINCESS 

be  believed  in  and  pronounced  void  of  treachery. 
"Yes,  look,  look,"  she  seemed  to  see  him  hear  her  say 
even  while  her  sounded  words  were  other — "look,  look, 
both  at  the  truth  that  still  survives  in  that  smashed 
evidence  and  at  the  even  more  remarkable  appearance 
that  I'm  not  such  a  fool  as  you  supposed  me.  Look 
at  the  possibility  that,  since  I  am  different,  there  may 
still  be  something  in  it  for  you — if  you're  capable  of 
working  with  me  to  get  that  out.  Consider  of  course, 
as  you  must,  the  question  of  what  you  may  have  to 
surrender,  on  your  side,  what  price  you  may  have  to 
pay,  whom  you  may  have  to  pay  with,  to  set  this  ad 
vantage  free;  but  take  in,  at  any  rate,  that  there  is 
something  for  you  if  you  don't  too  blindly  spoil  your 
chance  for  it."  He  went  no  nearer  the  damnatory 
pieces,  but  he  eyed  them,  from  where  he  stood,  with  a 
degree  of  recognition  just  visibly  less  to  be  dissimu 
lated  ;  all  of  which  represented  for  her  a  certain  trace 
able  process.  And  her  uttered  words,  meanwhile, 
were  different  enough  from  those  he  might  have  in 
serted  between  the  lines  of  her  already-spoken.  "It's 
the  golden  bowl,  you  know,  that  you  saw  at  the  little 
antiquario's  in  Bloomsbury,  so  long  ago — when  you 
went  there  with  Charlotte,  when  you  spent  those  hours 
with  her,  unknown  to  me,  a  day  or  two  before  our  mar 
riage.  It  was  shown  you  both,  but  you  didn't  take  it ; 
you  left  it  for  me,  and  I  came  upon  it,  extraordinarily, 
through  happening  to  go  into  the  same  shop  on  Mon 
day  last;  in  walking  home,  in  prowling  about  to  pick 
up  some  small  old  thing  for  father's  birthday,  after  my 
visit  to  the  Museum,  my  appointment  there  with  Mr. 

195 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

Crichton,  of  which  I  told  you.  It  was  shown  me,  and 
I  was  struck  with  it  and  took  it — knowing  nothing 
about  it  at  the  time.  What  I  now  know  I've  learned 
since — I  learned  this  afternoon,  a  couple  of  hours  ago ; 
receiving  from  it  naturally  a  great  impression.  So 
there  it  is — in  its  three  pieces.  You  can  handle  them 
— don't  be  afraid — if  you  want  to  make  sure  the  thing 
is  the  thing  you  and  Charlotte  saw  together.  Its  hav 
ing  come  apart  makes  an  unfortunate  difference  for  its 
beauty,  its  artistic  value,  but  none  for  anything  else. 
Its  other  value  is  just  the  same — I  mean  that  of  its 
having  given  me  so  much  of  the  truth  about  you.  I 
don't  therefore  so  much  care  what  becomes  of  it  now — 
unless  perhaps  you  may  yourself,  when  you  come  to 
think,  have  some  good  use  for  it.  In  that  case,"  Mag 
gie  wound  up,  "we  can  easily  take  the  pieces  with  us 
to  Fawns." 

It  was  wonderful  how  she  felt,  by  the  time  she  had 
seen  herself  through  this  narrow  pass,  that  she  had 
really  achieved  something — that  she  was  emerging  a 
little,  in  fine,  with  the  prospect  less  contracted.  She 
had  done  for  him,  that  is,  what  her  instinct  enjoined; 
had  laid  a  basis  not  merely  momentary  on  which  he 
could  meet  her.  When,  by  the  turn  of  his  head,  he  did 
finally  meet  her,  this  was  the  last  thing  that  glimmered 
out  of  his  look ;  but  it  came  into  sight,  none  the  less,  as 
a  perception  of  his  distress  and  almost  as  a  question  of 
his  eyes;  so  that,  for  still  another  minute,  before  he 
committed  himself,  there  occurred  between  them  a  kind 
of  unprecedented  moral  exchange  over  which  her 
superior  lucidity  presided.  It  was  not,  however,  that 

196 


THE  PRINCESS 

when  he  did  commit  himself  the  show  was  promptly 
portentous.  "But  what  in  the  world  has  Fanny  As- 
singham  had  to  do  with  it?" 

She  could  verily,  out  of  all  her  smothered  soreness, 
almost  have  smiled :  his  question  so  affected  her  as  giv 
ing  the  whole  thing  up  to  her.  But  it  left  her  only  to 
go  the  straighten  "She  has  had  to  do  with  it  that  I 
immediately  sent  for  her  and  that  she  immediately 
came.  She  was  the  first  person  I  wanted  to  see — 
because  I  knew  she  would  know.  Know  more  about 
what  I  had  learned,  I  mean,  than  I  could  make  out  for 
myself.  I  made  out  as  much  as  I  could  for  myself — 
that  I  also  wanted  to  have  done ;  but  it  didn't,  in  spite 
of  everything,  take  me  very  far,  and  she  has  really 
been  a  help.  Not  so  much  as  she  would  like  to  be — 
not  so  much  as,  poor  dear,  she  just  now  tried  to  be; 
yet  she  has  done  her  very  best  for  you — never  forget 
that! — and  has  kept  me  along  immeasurably  better 
than  I  should  have  been  able  to  come  without  her. 
She  has  gained  me  time ;  and  that,  these  three  months, 
don't  you  see?  has  been  everything." 

She  had  said  "Don't  you  see?"  on  purpose,  and  was 
to  feel  the  next  moment  that  it  had  acted.  "  'These 
three  months'  ?"  the  Prince  asked. 

"Counting  from  the  night  you  came  home  so  late 
from  Matcham.  Counting  from  the  hours  you  spent 
with  Charlotte  at  Gloucester;  your  visit  to  the  cathe 
dral — which  you  won't  have  forgotten  describing  to 
me  in  so  much  detail.  For  that  was  the  beginning  of 
my  being  sure.  Before  it  I  had  been  sufficiently  in 
doubt.  Sure,"  Maggie  developed,  "of  your  having, 

197 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

and  of  your  having  for  a  long  time  had,  two  relations 
with  Charlotte." 

He  stared,  a  little  at  sea,  as  he  took  it  up. 
"Two ?" 

Something  in  the  tone  of  it  gave  it  a  sense,  or  an 
ambiguity,  almost  foolish — leaving  Maggie  to  feel,  as 
in  a  flash,  how  such  a  consequence,  a  foredoomed  in 
felicity,  partaking  of  the  ridiculous  even  in  one  of  the 
cleverest,  might  be  of  the  very  essence  of  the  penalty 
of  wrong-doing.  "Oh,  you  may  have  had  fifty — had 
the  same  relation  with  her  fifty  times!  It's  of  the 
number  of  kinds  of  relation  with  her  that  I  speak — a 
number  that  doesn't  matter,  really,  so  long  as  there 
wasn't  only  one  kind,  as  father  and  I  supposed.  One 
kind,"  she  went  on,  "was  there  before  us;  we  took 
that  fully  for  granted,  as  you  saw,  and  accepted  it. 
We  never  thought  of  there  being  another,  kept  out  of 
our  sight.  But  after  the  evening  I  speak  of  I  knew 
there  was  something  else.  As  I  say,  I  had,  before  that, 
my  idea — which  you  never  dreamed  I  had.  From  the 
moment  I  speak  of  it  had  more  to  go  upon,  and  you 
became  yourselves,  you  and  she,  vaguely,  yet  uneasily, 
conscious  of  the  difference.  But  it's  within  these  last 
hours  that  I've  most  seen  where  we  are;  and  as  I've 
been  in  communication  with  Fanny  Assingham  about 
my  doubts,  so  I  wanted  to  let  her  know  my  certainty — 
with  the  determination  of  which,  however,  you  must 
understand,  she  has  had  nothing  to  do.  She  defends 
you,"  Maggie  remarked. 

He  had  given  her  all  his  attention,  and  with  this  im 
pression  for  her,  again,  that  he  was,  in  essence,  fairly 

198 


THE  PRINCESS 

reaching  out  to  her  for  time — time,  only  time — she 
could  sufficiently  imagine,  and  to  whatever  strange 
ness,  that  he  absolutely  liked  her  to  talk,  even  at  the 
cost  of  his  losing  almost  everything  else  by  it.  It  was 
still,  for  a  minute,  as  if  he  waited  for  something  worse ; 
wanted  everything  that  was  in  her  to  come  out,  any 
definite  fact,  anything  more  precisely  nameable,  so  that 
he  too — as  was  his  right — should  know  where  he  was. 
What  stirred  in  him  above  all,  while  he  followed  in  her 
face  the  clear  train  of  her  speech,  must  have  been  the 
impulse  to  take  up  something  she  put  before  him  that 
he  was  yet  afraid  directly  to  touch.  He  wanted  to 
make  free  with  it,  but  had  to  keep  his  hands  off — for 
reasons  he  had  already  made  out;  and  the  discomfort 
of  his  privation  yearned  at  her  out  of  his  eyes  with  an 
announcing  gleam  of  the  fever,  the  none  too  tolerable 
chill,  of  specific  recognition.  She  affected  him  as 
speaking  more  or  less  for  her  father  as  well,  and  his 
eyes  might  have  been  trying  to  hypnotise  her  into  giv 
ing  him  the  answer  without  his  asking  the  question. 
"Had  he  his  idea,  and  has  he  now,  with  you,  anything 
more?" — those  were  the  words  he  had  to  hold  himself 
from  not  speaking  and  that  she  would  as  yet,  certainly, 
do  nothing  to  make  easy.  She  felt  with  her  sharpest 
thrill  how  he  was  straitened  and  tied,  and  with  the  mis 
erable  pity  of  it  her  present  conscious  purpose  of  keep 
ing  him  so  could  none  the  less  perfectly  accord.  To 
name  her  father,  on  any  such  basis  of  anxiety,  of  com 
punction,  would  be  to  do  the  impossible  thing,  to  do 
neither  more  nor  less  than  give  Charlotte  away.  Vis 
ibly,  palpably,  traceably,  he  stood  off  from  this,  moved 

199 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

back  from  it  as  from  an  open  chasm  now  suddenly  per 
ceived,  but  which  had  been,  between  the  two,  with  so 
much,  so  strangely  much  else,  quite  uncalculated. 
Verily  it  towered  before  her,  this  history  of  their  con 
fidence.  They  had  built  strong  and  piled  high — based 
as  it  was  on  such  appearances — their  conviction  that, 
thanks  to  her  native  complacencies  of  so  many  sorts, 
she  would  always,  quite  to  the  end  and  through  and 
through,  take  them  as  nobly  sparing  her.  Amerigo 
was  at  any  rate  having  the  sensation  of  a  particular 
ugliness  to  avoid,  a  particular  difficulty  to  count  with, 
that  practically  found  him  as  unprepared  as  if  he  had 
been,  like  his  wife,  an  abjectly  simple  person.  And 
she  meanwhile,  however  abjectly  simple,  was  further 
discerning,  for  herself,  that,  whatever  he  might  have 
to  take  from  her — she  being,  on  her  side,  beautifully 
free — he  would  absolutely  not  be  able,  for  any  qualify 
ing  purpose,  to  name  Charlotte  either.  As  his  father- 
in-law's  wife  Mrs.  Verver  rose  between  them  there,  for 
the  time,  in  august  and  prohibitive  form;  to  protect 
her,  defend  her,  explain  about  her,  was,  at  the  least, 
to  bring  her  into  the  question — which  would  be  by  the 
same  stroke  to  bring  her  husband.  But  this  was  ex 
actly  the  door  Maggie  wouldn't  open  to  him ;  on  all  of 
which  she  was  the  next  moment  asking  herself  if,  thus 
warned  and  embarrassed,  he  were  not  fairly  writhing 
in  his  pain.  He  writhed,  on  that  hypothesis,  some 
seconds  more,  for  it  was  not  till  then  that  he  had 
chosen  between  what  he  could  do  and  what  he 
couldn't. 

"You're   apparently   drawing   immense  conclusions 
200 


THE  PRINCESS 

from  very  small  matters.  Won't  you  perhaps  feel,  in 
fairness,  that  you're  striking  out,  triumphing,  or  what 
ever  I  may  call  it,  rather  too  easily — feel  it  when  I 
perfectly  admit  that  your  smashed  cup  there  does  come 
back  to  me?  I  frankly  confess,  now,  to  the  occasion, 
and  to  having  wished  not  to  speak  of  it  to  you  at  the 
time.  We  took  two  or  three  hours  together,  by  ar 
rangement;  it  was  on  the  eve  of  my  marriage — at  the 
moment  you  say.  But  that  put  it  on  the  eve  of  yours 
too,  my  dear — which  was  directly  the  point.  It  was 
desired  to  find  for  you,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  some 
small  wedding-present — a  hunt,  for  something  worth 
giving  you,  and  yet  possible  from  other  points  of  view 
as  well,  in  which  it  seemed  I  could  be  of  use.  You 
were  naturally  not  to  be  told — precisely  because  it  was 
all  for  you.  We  went  forth  together  and  we  looked ; 
we  rummaged  about  and,  as  I  remember  we  called  it, 
we  prowled ;  then  it  was  that,  as  I  freely  recognise,  we 
came  across  that  crystal  cup — which  I'm  bound  to  say, 
upon  my  honour,  I  think  it  rather  a  pity  Fanny  Assing- 
ham,  from  whatever  good  motive,  should  have  treated 
so."  He  had  kept  his  hands  in  his  pockets;  he 
turned  his  eyes  again,  but  more  complacently  now,  to 
the  ruins  of  the  precious  vessel ;  and  Maggie  could  feel 
him  exhale  into  the  achieved  quietness  of  his  explana 
tion  a  long,  deep  breath  of  comparative  relief.  Behind 
everything,  beneath  everything,  it  was  somehow  a 
comfort  to  him  at  last  to  be  talking  with  her — and 
he  seemed  to  be  proving  to  himself  that  he  could  talk. 
"It  was  at  a  little  shop  in  Bloomsbury — I  think  I  could 
go  to  the  place  now.  The  man  understood  Italian,  I 

201 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

remember;  he  wanted  awfully  to  work  off  his  bowl. 
But  I  didn't  believe  in  it,  and  we  didn't  take  it." 

Maggie  had  listened  with  an  interest  that  wore  all 
the  expression  of  candour.  "Oh,  you  left  it  for  me. 
But  what  did  you  take?" 

He  looked  at  her;  first  as  if  he  were  trying  to  re 
member,  then  as  if  he  might  have  been  trying  to  for 
get.  "Nothing,  I  think — at  that  place." 

"What  did  you  take  then  at  any  other?  What  did 
you  get  me — since  that  was  your  aim  and  end — for  a 
wedding-gift?" 

The  Prince  continued  very  nobly  to  bethink  himself. 
"Didn't  we  get  you  anything?" 

Maggie  waited  a  little ;  she  had  for  some  time,  now, 
kept  her  eyes  on  him  steadily;  but  they  wandered,  at 
this,  to  the  fragments  on  her  chimney.  "Yes;  it 
comes  round,  after  all,  to  your  having  got  me  the  bowl. 
I  myself  was  to  come  upon  it,  the  other  day,  by  so 
wonderful  a  chance;  was  to  find  it  in  the  same  place 
and  to  have  it  pressed  upon  me  by  the  same  little  man, 
who  does,  as  you  say,  understand  Italian.  I  did 
'believe  in  it/  you  see — must  have  believed  in  it  some 
how  instinctively;  for  I  took  it  as  soon  as  I  saw  it. 
Though  I  didn't  know  at  all  then,"  she  added,  "what 
I  was  taking  with  it." 

The  Prince  paid  her  for  an  instant,  visibly,  the  def 
erence  of  trying  to  imagine  what  this  might  have  been. 
"I  agree  with  you  that  the  coincidence  is  extraordinary 
— the  sort  of  thing  that  happens  mainly  in  novels  and 
plays.  But  I  don't  see,  you  must  let  me  say,  the  im 
portance  or  the  connexion " 

202 


THE   PRINCESS 

"Of  my  having  made  the  purchase  where  you  failed 
of  it?"  She  had  quickly  taken  him  up;  but  she  had, 
with  her  eyes  on  him  once  more,  another  drop  into  the 
order  of  her  thoughts,  to  which,  through  whatever  he 
might  say,  she  was  still  adhering.  "It's  not  my  hav 
ing  gone  into  the  place,  at  the  end  of  four  years,  that 
makes  the  strangeness  of  the  coincidence;  for  don't 
such  chances  as  that,  in  London,  easily  occur?  The 
strangeness,"  she  lucidly  said,  "is  in  what  my  purchase 
was  to  represent  to  me  after  I  had  got  it  home ;  which 
value  came,"  she  explained,  "from  the  wonder  of  my 
having  found  such  a  friend." 

"  'Such  a  friend'  ?"  As  a  wonder,  assuredly,  her 
husband  could  but  take  it. 

"As  the  little  man  in  the  shop.  He  did  for  me  more 
than  he  knew — I  owe  it  to  him.  He  took  an  interest 
in  me,"  Maggie  said ;  "and,  taking  that  interest,  he  re 
called  your  visit,  he  remembered  you  and  spoke  of  you 
to  me." 

On  which  the  Prince  passed  the  comment  of  a  scep 
tical  smile.  "Ah  but,  my  dear,  if  extraordinary  things 
come  from  people's  taking  an  interest  in  you " 

"My  life  in  that  case,"  she  asked,  "must  be  very  agi 
tated?  Well,  he  liked  me,  I  mean — very  particularly. 
It's  only  so  I  can  account  for  my  afterwards  hearing 
from  him — and  in  fact  he  gave  me  that  to-day,"  she 
pursued,  "he  gave  me  it  frankly  as  his  reason." 

"To-day?"  the  Prince  inquiringly  echoed. 

But  she  was  singularly  able — it  had  been  marvel 
lously  "given"  her,  she  afterwards  said  to  herself — 
to  abide,  for  her  light,  for  her  clue,  by  her  own  order. 

203 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

"I  inspired  him  with  sympathy — there  you  are!  But 
the  miracle  is  that  he  should  have  a  sympathy  to  offer 
that  could  be  of  use  to  me.  That  was  really  the  oddity 
of  my  chance,"  the  Princess  proceeded — "that  I  should 
have  been  moved,  in  my  ignorance,  to  go  precisely  to 
him." 

He  saw  her  so  keep  her  course  that  it  was  as  if  he 
could,  at  the  best,  but  stand  aside  to  watch  her  and  let 
her  pass;  he  only  made  a  vague  demonstration  that 
was  like  an  ineffective  gesture.  "I'm  sorry  to  say  any 
ill  of  your  friends,  and  the  thing  was  a  long  time  ago ; 
besides  which  there  was  nothing  to  make  me  recur  to 
it.  But  I  remember  the  man's  striking  me  as  a  de 
cided  little  beast." 

She  gave  a  slow  headshake — as  if,  no,  after  consid 
eration,  not  that  way  were  an  issue.  "I  can  only  think 
of  him  as  kind,  for  he  had  nothing  to  gain.  He  had 
in  fact  only  to  lose.  It  was  what  he  came  to  tell  me 
— that  he  had  asked  me  too  high  a  price,  more  than  the 
object  was  really  worth.  There  was  a  particular  rea 
son,  which  he  hadn't  mentioned,  and  which  had  made 
him  consider  and  repent.  He  wrote  for  leave  to  see 
me  again — wrote  in  such  terms  that  I  saw  him  here 
this  afternoon." 

"Here?" — it  made  the  Prince  look  about  him. 

"Downstairs — in  the  little  red  room.  While  he 
was  waiting  he  looked  at  the  few  photographs  that 
stand  about  there  and  recognised  two  of  them. 
Though  it  was  so  long  ago,  he  remembered  the  visit 
made  him  by  the  lady  and  the  gentleman,  and  that  gave 
him  his  connexion.  It  gave  me  mine,  for  he  remem- 

204 


THE   PRINCESS 

bered  everything  and  told  me  everything.  You  see 
you  too  had  produced  your  effect ;  only,  unlike  you,  he 
had  thought  of  it  again — he  had  recurred  to  it.  He 
told  me  of  your  having  wished  to  make  each  other 
presents — but  of  that's  not  having  come  off.  The  lady 
was  greatly  taken  with  the  piece  I  had  bought  of  him, 
but  you  had  your  reason  against  receiving  it  from  her, 
and  you  had  been  right.  He  would  think  that  of  you 
more  than  ever  now,"  Maggie  went  on ;  "he  would  see 
how  wisely  you  had  guessed  the  flaw  and  how  easily 
the  bowl  could  be  broken.  I  had  bought  it  myself,  you 
see,  for  a  present — he  knew  I  was  doing  that.  This 
was  what  had  worked  in  him — especially  after  the 
price  I  had  paid." 

Her  story  had  dropped  an  instant;  she  still  brought 
it  out  in  small  waves  of  energy,  each  of  which  spent 
its  force;  so  that  he  had  an  opportunity  to  speak  be 
fore  this  force  was  renewed.  But  the  quaint  thing 
was  what  he  now  said.  "And  what,  pray,  was  the 
price?" 

She  paused  again  a  little.  "It  was  high,  certainly 
— for  those  fragments.  I  think  I  feel,  as  I  look  at 
them  there,  rather  ashamed  to  say." 

The  Prince  then  again  looked  at  them;  he  might 
have  been  growing  used  to  the  sight.  "But  shall  you 
at  least  get  your  money  back?" 

"Oh,  I'm  far  from  wanting  it  back — I  feel  so  that 
I'm  getting  its  worth."  With  which,  before  he  could 
reply,  she  had  a  quick  transition.  "The  great  fact 
about  the  day  we're  talking  of  seems  to  me  to  have 
been,  quite  remarkably,  that  no  present  was  then  made 

205 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

me.  If  your  undertaking  had  been  for  that,  that  was 
not  at  least  what  came  of  it." 

"You  received  then  nothing  at  all?"  The  Prince 
looked  vague  and  grave,  almost  retrospectively  con 
cerned. 

"Nothing  but  an  apology  for  empty  hands  and 
empty  pockets ;  which  was  made  me — as  if  it  mattered 
a  mite! — ever  so  frankly,  ever  so  beautifully  and 
touchingly." 

This  Amerigo  heard  with  interest,  yet  not  with  con 
fusion.  "Ah,  of  course  you  couldn't  have  minded!" 
Distinctly,  as  she  went  on,  he  was  getting  the  better  of 
the  mere  awkwardness  of  his  arrest;  quite  as  if  mak 
ing  out  that  he  need  suffer  arrest  from  her  now — 
before  they  should  go  forth  to  show  themselves  in  the 
world  together — in  no  greater  quantity  than  an  occa 
sion  ill-chosen  at  the  best  for  a  scene  might  decently 
make  room  for.  He  looked  at  his  watch;  their  en 
gagement,  all  the  while,  remained  before  him.  "But 
I  don't  make  out,  you  see,  what  case  against  me  you 
rest " 

"On  everything  I'm  telling  you?  Why,  the  whole 
case — the  case  of  your  having  for  so  long  so  success 
fully  deceived  me.  The  idea  of  your  finding  some 
thing  for  me — charming  as  that  would  have  been — 
was  what  had  least  to  do  with  your  taking  a  morning 
together  at  that  moment.  What  had  really  to  do  with 
it,"  said  Maggie,  "was  that  you  had  to :  you  couldn't 
not,  from  the  moment  you  were  again  face  to  face. 
And  the  reason  of  that  was  that  there  had  been  so  much 
between  you  before — before  /  came  between  you  at  all." 

206 


THE  PRINCESS 

Her  husband  had  been  for  these  last  moments  mov 
ing  about  under  her  eyes ;  but  at  this,  as  to  check  any 
show  of  impatience,  he  again  stood  still.  "You've 
never  been  more  sacred  to  me  than  you  were  at  that 
hour — unless  perhaps  you've  become  so  at  this  one." 

The  assurance  of  his  speech,  she  could  note,  quite 
held  up  its  head  in  him;  his  eyes  met  her  own  so,  for 
the  declaration,  that  it  was  as  if  something  cold  and 
momentarily  unimaginable  breathed  upon  her,  from 
afar  off,  out  of  his  strange  consistency.  She  kept  her 
direction  still,  however,  under  that.  "Oh,  the  thing 
I've  known  best  of  all  is  that  you've  never  wanted, 
together,  to  offend  us.  You've  wanted  quite  intensely 
not  to,  and  the  precautions  you've  had  to  take  for  it 
have  been  for  a  long  time  one  of  the  strongest  of  my 
impressions.  That,  I  think,"  she  added,  "is  the  way 
I've  best  known." 

"Known  ?"  he  repeated  after  a  moment. 

"Known.  Known  that  you  were  older  friends,  and 
so  much  more  intimate  ones,  than  I  had  any  reason  to 
suppose  when  we  married.  Known  there  were  things 
that  hadn't  been  told  me — and  that  gave  their  mean 
ing,  little  by  little,  to  other  things  that  were  before 
me." 

"Would  they  have  made  a  difference,  in  the  matter 
of  our  marriage,"  the  Prince  presently  asked,  "if  you 
had  known  them?" 

She  took  her  time  to  think.     "I  grant  you  not — in 

the  matter  of  ours."     And  then  as  he  again  fixed  her 

with  his  hard  yearning,  which  he  couldn't  keep  down : 

"The  question  is  so  much  bigger  than  that.     You  see 

.  207 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

how  much  what  I  know  makes  of  it  for  me."  That 
was  what  acted  on  him,  this  iteration  of  her  knowledge, 
into  the  question  of  the  validity,  of  the  various  bear 
ings  of  which,  he  couldn't  on  the  spot  trust  himself 
to  pretend,  in  any  high  way,  to  go.  What  her  claim, 
as  she  made  it,  represented  for  him — that  he  couldn't 
help  betraying,  if  only  as  a  consequence  of  the  effect 
of  the  word  itself,  her  repeated  distinct  "know,  know," 
on  his  nerves.  She  was  capable  of  being  sorry  for  his 
nerves  at  a  time  when  he  should  need  them  for  dining 
out,  pompously,  rather  responsibly,  without  his  heart 
in  it;  yet  she  was  not  to  let  that  prevent  her  using, 
with  all  economy,  so  precious  a  chance  for  supreme 
clearness.  "I  didn't  force  this  upon  you,  you  must 
recollect,  and  it  probably  wouldn't  have  happened  for 
you  if  you  hadn't  come  in." 

"Ah,"  said  the  Prince,  "I  was  liable  to  come  in,  you 
know." 

"I  didn't  think  you  were  this  evening." 

"And  why  not?" 

"Well,"  she  answered,  "you  have  many  liabilities — 
of  different  sorts."  With  which  she  recalled  what  she 
had  said  to  Fanny  Assingham.  "And  then  you're  so 
deep." 

It  produced  in  his  features,  in  spite  of  his  control  of 
them,  one  of  those  quick  plays  of  expression,  the  shade 
of  a  grimace,  that  testified  as  nothing  else  did  to  his 
race.  "It's  you,  cara,  who  are  deep." 

Which,  after  an  instant,  she  had  accepted  from  him ; 
she  could  so  feel  at  last  that  it  was  true.  "Then  I 
shall  have  need  of  it  all." 

208 


"But  what  would  you  have  done,"  he  was  by  this 
time  asking,  "if  I  hadn't  come  in?" 

"I  don't  know."  She  had  hesitated.  "What 
would  you?" 

"Oh,  io — that  isn't  the  question.  I  depend  upon 
you.  I  go  on.  You  would  have  spoken  to-morrow  ?" 

"I  think  I  would  have  waited." 

"And  for  what?"  he  asked. 

"To  see  what  difference  it  would  make  for  myself. 
My  possession  at  last,  I  mean,  of  real  knowledge." 

"Oh !"  said  the  Prince. 

"My  only  point  now,  at  any  rate,"  she  went  on,  "is 
the  difference,  as  I  say,  that  it  may  make  for  you. 
Your  knowing  was — from  the  moment  you  did  come 
in — all  I  had  in  view."  And  she  sounded  it  again — 
he  should  have  it  once  more.  "Your  knowing  that 
I've  ceased " 

"That  you've  ceased ?"  With  her  pause,  in 

fact,  she  had  fairly  made  him  press  her  for  it. 

"Why,  to  be  as  I  was.     Not  to  know." 

It  was  once  more  then,  after  a  little,  that  he  had  had 
to  stand  receptive;  yet  the  singular  effect  of  this  was 
that  there  was  still  something  of  the  same  sort  he  was 
made  to  want.  He  had  another  hesitation,  but  at  last 
this  odd  quantity  showed.  "Then  does  any  one  else 
know?" 

It  was  as  near  as  he  could  come  to  naming  her 
father,  and  she  kept  him  at  that  distance.  "Any 
one ?" 

"Any  one,  I  mean,  but  Fanny  Assingham." 

"I  should  have  supposed  you  had  had  by  this  time 

VOL.  n.— 14  209 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

particular  means  of  learning.  I  don't  see,"  she  said, 
"why  you  ask  me." 

Then,  after  an  instant — and  only  after  an  instant, 
as  she  saw — he  made  out  what  she  meant ;  and  it  gave 
her,  all  strangely  enough,  the  still  further  light  that 
Charlotte,  for  herself,  knew  as  little  as  he  had  known. 
The  vision  loomed,  in  this  light,  it  fairly  glared,  for 
the  few  seconds — the  vision  of  the  two  others  alone 
together  at  Fawns,  and  Charlotte,  as  one  of  them,  hav 
ing  gropingly  to  go  on,  always  not  knowing  and  not 
knowing!  The  picture  flushed  at  the  same  time  with 
all  its  essential  colour — that  of  the  so  possible  identity 
of  her  father's  motive  and  principle  with  her  own. 
He  was  "deep,"  as  Amerigo  called  it,  so  that  no  vibra 
tion  of  the  still  air  should  reach  his  daughter;  just  as 
she  had  earned  that  description  by  making  and  by,  for 
that  matter,  intending  still  to  make,  her  care  for  his 
serenity,  or  at  any  rate  for  the  firm  outer  shell  of  his 
dignity,  all  marvellous  enamel,  her  paramount  law. 
More  strangely  even  than  anything  else,  her  husband 
seemed  to  speak  now  but  to  help  her  in  this.  "I  know 
nothing  but  what  you  tell  me." 

"Then  I've  told  you  all  I  intended.  Find  out  the 
rest !" 

"Find  it  out ?"     He  waited. 

She  stood  before  him  a  moment — it  took  that  time 
to  go  on.  Depth  upon  depth  of  her  situation,  as  she 
met  his  face,  surged  and  sank  within  her ;  but  with  the 
effect  somehow,  once  more,  that  they  rather  lifted  her 
than  let  her  drop.  She  had  her  feet  somewhere, 
through  it  all — it  was  her  companion,  absolutely,  who 

210 


THE  PRINCESS 

was  at  sea.  And  she  kept  her  feet;  she  pressed  them 
to  what  was  beneath  her.  She  went  over  to  the  bell 
beside  the  chimney  and  gave  a  ring  that  he  could  but 
take  as  a  summons  for  her  maid.  It  stopped  every 
thing  for  the  present;  it  was  an  intimation  to  him  to 
go  and  dress.  But  she  had  to  insist.  "Find  out  for 
yourself !" 


PART  FIFTH 

XXXV 

AFTER  the  little  party  was  again  constituted  at 
Fawns — which  had  taken,  for  completeness,  some  ten 
days — Maggie  naturally  felt  herself  still  more  pos 
sessed,  in  spirit,  of  everything  that  had  last  happened 
in  London.  There  was  a  phrase  that  came  back  to 
her  from  old  American  years:  she  was  having,  by 
that  idiom,  the  time  of  her  life — she  knew  it  by  the 
perpetual  throb  of  this  sense  of  possession,  which  was 
almost  too  violent  either  to  recognise  or  to  hide. 
It  was  as  if  she  had  come  out — that  was  her  most 
general  consciousness;  out  of  a  dark  tunnel,  a  dense 
wood,  or  even  simply  a  smoky  room,  and  had  thereby, 
at  least,  for  going  on,  the  advantage  of  air  in  her 
lungs.  It  was  as  if  she  were  somehow  at  last  gather 
ing  in  the  fruits  of  patience;  she  had  either  been 
really  more  patient  than  she  had  known  at  the  time, 
or  had  been  so  for  longer:  the  change  brought  about 
by  itself  as  great  a  difference  of  view  as  the  shift 
of  an  inch  in  the  position  of  a  telescope.  It  was  her 
telescope  in  fact  that  had  gained  in  range — just  as 
her  danger  lay  in  her  exposing  herself  to  the  observa 
tion  by  the  more  charmed,  and  therefore  the  more 

212 


THE  PRINCESS 

reckless,  use  of  this  optical  resource.  Not  under  any 
provocation  to  produce  it  in  public  was  her  unre- 
mitted  rule;  but  the  difficulties  of  duplicity  had  not 
shrunk,  while  the  need  of  it  had  doubled.  Humbug 
ging,  which  she  had  so  practised  with  her  father,  had 
been  a  comparatively  simple  matter  on  the  basis  of 
mere  doubt;  but  the  ground  to  be  covered  was  now 
greatly  larger,  and  she  felt  not  unlike  some  young 
woman  of  the  theatre  who,  engaged  for  a  minor  part 
in  the  play  and  having  mastered  her  cues  with  anxious 
effort,  should  find  herself  suddenly  promoted  to  lead 
ing  lady  and  expected  to  appear  in  every  act  of  the 
five.  She  had  made  much  to  her  husband,  that  last 
night,  of  her  "knowing";  but  it  was  exactly  this 
quantity  she  now  knew  that,  from  the  moment  she 
could  only  dissimulate  it,  added  to  her  responsibility 
and  made  of  the  latter  all  a  mere  question  of  having 
something  precious  and  precarious  in  charge.  There 
was  no  one  to  help  her  with  it — not  even  Fanny  As- 
singham  now;  this  good  friend's  presence  having 
become,  inevitably,  with  that  climax  of  their  last  in 
terview  in  Portland  Place,  a  severely  simplified 
function.  She  had  her  use,  oh  yes,  a  thousand  times; 
but  it  could  only  consist  henceforth  in  her  quite  con 
spicuously  touching  at  no  point  whatever — assuredly, 
at  least  with  Maggie — the  matter  they  had  dis 
cussed.  She  was  there,  inordinately,  as  a  value,  but 
as  a  value  only  for  the  clear  negation  of  everything. 
She  was  their  general  sign,  precisely,  of  unimpaired 
beatitude — and  she  was  to  live  up  to  that  somewhat 
arduous  character,  poor  thing,  as  she  might.  She 

213 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

might  privately  lapse  from  it,  if  she  must,  with 
Amerigo  or  with  Charlotte — only  not,  of  course, 
ever,  so  much  as  for  the  wink  of  an  eye,  with  the 
master  of  the  house.  Such  lapses  would  be  her  own 
affair,  which  Maggie  at  present  could  take  no  thought 
of.  She  treated  her  young  friend  meanwhile,  it  was 
to  be  said,  to  no  betrayal  of  such  wavering;  so  that 
from  the  moment  of  her  alighting  at  the  door  with 
the  Colonel  everything  went  on  between  them  at 
concert  pitch.  What  had  she  done,  that  last  evening 
in  Maggie's  room,  but  bring  the  husband  and  wife 
more  together  than,  as  would  seem,  they  had  ever 
been?  Therefore  what  indiscretion  should  she  not 
show  by  attempting  to  go  behind  the  grand  appear 
ance  of  her  success? — which  would  be  to  court  a 
doubt  of  her  beneficent  work.  She  knew  accordingly 
nothing  but  harmony  and  diffused,  restlessly,  nothing 
but  peace — an  extravagant,  expressive,  aggressive 
peace,  not  incongruous,  after  all,  with  the  solid  calm 
of  the  place;  a  kind  of  helmetted,  trident-shaking  pax 
Britannica. 

The  peace,  it  must  be  added,  had  become,  as  the 
days  elapsed,  a  peace  quite  generally  animated  and 
peopled — thanks  to  that  fact  of  the  presence  of 
"company"  in  which  Maggie's  ability  to  preserve  an 
appearance  had  learned,  from  so  far  back,  to  find  its 
best  resource.  It  was  not  inconspicuous,  it  was  in 
fact  striking,  that  this  resource,  just  now,  seemed 
to  meet  in  the  highest  degree  every  one's  need:  quite 
as  if  every  one  were,  by  the  multiplication  of  human 
objects  in  the  scene,  by  the  creation,  by  the  confusion, 

214 


THE   PRINCESS 

of  fictive  issues,  hopeful  of  escaping  somebody  else's 
notice.  It  had  reached  the  point,  in  truth,  that  the 
collective  bosom  might  have  been  taken  to  heave 
with  the  knowledge  of  the  descent  upon  adjacent 
shores,  for  a  short  period,  of  Mrs.  Ranee  and  the 
Lutches,  still  united,  and  still  so  divided,  for  con 
quest:  the  sense  of  the  party  showed  at  least,  oddly 
enough,  as  favourable  to  the  fancy  of  the  quaint 
turn  that  some  near  "week-end"  might  derive  from 
their  reappearance.  This  measured  for  Maggie  the 
ground  they  had  all  travelled  together  since  that 
unforgotten  afternoon  of  the  none  so  distant  year, 
that  determinant  September  Sunday  when,  sitting 
with  her  father  in  the  park,  as  in  commemoration  of 
the  climax  both  of  their  old  order  and  of  their  old 
danger,  she  had  proposed  to  him  that  they  should  "call 
in"  Charlotte, — call  her  in  as  a  specialist  might  be 
summoned  to  an  invalid's  chair.  Wasn't  it  a  sign  of 
something  rather  portentous,  their  being  ready  to  be 
beholden,  as  for  a  diversion,  to  the  once  despised  Kitty 
and  Dotty?  That  had  already  had  its  application,  in 
truth,  to  her  invocation  of  the  Castledeans  and  sev 
eral  other  members,  again,  of  the  historic  Matcham 
week,  made  before  she  left  town,  and  made,  always 
consistently,  with  an  idea — since  she  was  never 
henceforth  to  approach  these  people  without  an  idea, 
and  since  that  lurid  element  of  their  intercourse  grew 
and  grew  for  her  with  each  occasion.  The  flame  with 
which  it  burned  afresh  during  these  particular  days, 
the  way  it  held  up  the  torch  to  anything,  to  every 
thing,  that  might  have  occurred  as  the  climax  of  revels 

215 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

springing  from  traditions  so  vivified — this  by  itself 
justified  her  private  motive  and  reconsecrated  her 
diplomacy.  She  had  already  produced  by  the  aid  of 
these  people  something  of  the  effect  she  sought — that 
of  being  "good"  for  whatever  her  companions  were 
good  for,  and  of  not  asking  either  of  them  to  give 
up  anyone  or  anything  for  her  sake.  There  was 
moreover,  frankly,  a  sharpness  of  point  in  it  that 
she  enjoyed;  it  gave  an  accent  to  the  truth  she 
wished  to  illustrate — the  truth  that  the  surface  of 
her  recent  life,  thick-sown  with  the  flower  of  earnest 
endeavour,  with  every  form  of  the  unruffled  and  the 
undoubting,  suffered  no  symptom  anywhere  to  peep 
out.  It  was  as  if,  under  her  pressure,  neither  party 
could  get  rid  of  the  complicity,  as  it  might  be  figured, 
of  the  other;  as  if,  in  a  word,  she  saw  Amerigo  and 
Charlotte  committed,  for  fear  of  betrayals  on  their 
own  side,  to  a  kind  of  wan  consistency  on  the  subject 
of  Lady  Castledean's  "set,"  and  this  latter  group, 
by  the  same  stroke,  compelled  to  assist  at  attesta 
tions  the  extent  and  bearing  of  which  they  rather 
failed  to  grasp  and  which  left  them  indeed,  in  spite 
of  hereditary  high  spirits,  a  trifle  bewildered  and  even 
a  trifle  scared. 

They  made,  none  the  less,  at  Fawns,  for  number, 
for  movement,  for  sound — they  played  their  parts 
during  a  crisis  that  must  have  hovered  for  them,  in 
the  long  passages  of  the  old  house,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  established  ghost,  felt,  through  the  dark  hours 
as  a  constant  possibility,  rather  than  have  menaced 
them  in  the  form  of  a  daylight  bore,  one  of  the  per- 

216 


THE   PRINCESS 

ceived  outsiders  who  are  liable  to  be  met  in  the 
drawing-room  or  to  be  sat  next  to  at  dinner.  If  the 
Princess,  moreover,  had  failed  of  her  occult  use  for 
so  much  of  the  machinery  of  diversion,  she  would 
still  have  had  a  sense  not  other  than  sympathetic 
for  the  advantage  now  extracted  from  it  by  Fanny 
Assingham's  bruised  philosophy.  This  good  friend's 
relation  to  it  was  actually  the  revanche,  she  sufficiently 
indicated,  of  her  obscured  lustre  at  Matcham,  where 
she  had  known  her  way  about  so  much  less  than 
most  of  the  others.  She  knew  it  at  Fawns,  through 
the  pathless  wild  of  the  right  tone,  positively  better 
than  any  one,  Maggie  could  note  for  her;  and  her 
revenge  had  the  magnanimity  of  a  brave  pointing 
out  of  it  to  every  one  else,  a  wonderful  irresistible, 
conscious,  almost  compassionate  patronage.  Here 
was  a  house,  she  triumphantly  caused  it  to  be  noted, 
in  which  she  so  bristled  with  values  that  some  of  them 
might  serve,  by  her  amused  willingness  to  share,  for 
such  of  the  temporarily  vague,  among  her  fellow- 
guests,  such  of  the  dimly  disconcerted,  as  had  lost 
the  key  to  their  own.  It  may  have  been  partly 
through  the  effect  of  this  especial  strain  of  com 
munity  with  her  old  friend  that  Maggie  found  herself, 
one  evening,  moved  to  take  up  again  their  dropped 
directness  of  reference.  They  had  remained  down 
stairs  together  late;  the  other  women  of  the  party 
had  filed,  singly  or  in  couples,  up  the  "grand"  stair 
case  on  which,  from  the  equally  grand  hall,  these 
retreats  and  advances  could  always  be  pleasantly 
observed;  the  men  had  apparently  taken  their  way  to 

217 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

the  smoking-room;  while  the  Princess,  in  possession 
thus  of  a  rare  reach  of  view,  had  lingered  as  if  to 
enjoy  it.  Then  she  saw  that  Mrs.  Assingham  was 
remaining  a  little — and  as  for  the  appreciation  of  her 
enjoyment;  upon  which  they  stood  looking  at  each 
other  across  the  cleared  prospect  until  the  elder 
woman,  only  vaguely  expressive  and  tentative  now, 
came  nearer.  It  was  like  the  act  of  asking  if  there 
were  anything  she  could  yet  do,  and  that  question  was 
answered  by  her  immediately  feeling,  on  this  closer 
view,  as  she  had  felt  when  presenting  herself  in  Port 
land  Place  after  Maggie's  last  sharp  summons.  Their 
understanding  was  taken  up  by  these  new  snatched 
moments  where  that  occasion  had  left  it. 

"He  has  never  told  her  that  I  know.  Of  that  I'm 
at  last  satisfied."  And  then  as  Mrs.  Assingham 
opened  wide  eyes:  "I've  been  in  the  dark  since  we 
came  down,  not  understanding  what  he  has  been 
doing  or  intending — not  making  out  what  can  have 
passed  between  them.  But  within  a  day  or  two  I've 
begun  to  suspect,  and  this  evening,  for  reasons — oh, 
too  many  to  tell  you! — I've  been  sure,  since  it  ex 
plains.  Nothing  has  passed  between  them — that's 
what  has  happened.  It  explains,"  the  Princess  re 
peated  with  energy;  "it  explains,  it  explains!"  She 
spoke  in  a  manner  that  her  auditor  was  afterwards 
to  describe  to  the  Colonel,  oddly  enough,  as  that 
of  the  quietest  excitement;  she  had  turned  back  to 
the  chimney-place,  where,  in  honour  of  a  damp  day 
and  a  chill  night,  the  piled  logs  had  turned  to  flame 
and  sunk  to  embers;  and  the  evident  intensity  of  her 

218 


THE   PRINCESS 

vision  for  the  fact  she  imparted  made  Fanny  Assing- 
ham  wait  upon  her  words.  It  explained,  this  striking 
fact,  more  indeed  than  her  companion,  though 
conscious  of  fairly  gaping  with  good-will,  could 
swallow  at  once.  The  Princess,  however,  as  for 
indulgence  and  confidence,  quickly  filled  up  the 
measure.  "He  hasn't  let  her  know  that  I  know — 
and,  clearly,  doesn't  mean  to.  He  has  made  up  his 
mind;  he'll  say  nothing  about  it.  Therefore,  as  she's 
quite  unable  to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  by  herself, 
she  has  no  idea  how  much  I'm  really  in  possession. 
She  believes,"  said  Maggie,  "and,  so  far  as  her  own 
conviction  goes,  she  knows,  that  I'm  not  in  possession 
of  anything.  And  that,  somehow,  for  my  own  help 
seems  to  me  immense." 

"Immense,  my  dear!"  Mrs.  Assingham  applaus- 
ively  murmured,  though  not  quite,  even  as  yet,  seeing 
all  the  way.  "He's  keeping  quiet  then  on  purpose?" 

"On  purpose."  Maggie's  lighted  eyes,  at  least, 
looked  further  than  they  had  ever  looked.  "He'll 
never  tell  her  now." 

Fanny  wondered;  she  cast  about  her;  most  of  all 
she  admired  her  little  friend,  in  whom  this  announce 
ment  was  evidently  animated  by  an  heroic  lucidity. 
She  stood  there,  in  her  full  uniform,  like  some  small 
erect  commander  of  a  siege,  an  anxious  captain  who 
has  suddenly  got  news,  replete  with  importance  for 
him,  of  agitation,  of  division  within  the  place.  This 
importance  breathed  upon  her  comrade.  "So  you're 
all  right?" 

"Oh,  all  right's  a  good  deal  to  say.  But  I  seem 
219 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

at   least  to  see,   as  I  haven't  before,   where   I   am 
with  it." 

Fanny  bountifully  brooded;  there  was  a  point  left 
vague.  "And  you  have  it  from  him? — your  hus 
band  himself  has  told  you?" 

"  Told'  me ?" 

"Why,  what  you  speak  of.  It  isn't  of  an  assurance 
received  from  him  then  that  you  do  speak?" 

At  which  Maggie  had  continued  to  stare.  "Dear 
me,  no.  Do  you  suppose  I've  asked  him  for  an 
assurance?" 

"Ah,  you  haven't?"  Her  companion  smiled. 
"That's  what  I  supposed  you  might  mean.  Then, 
darling,  what  have  you ?" 

"Asked  him  for?    I've  asked  him  for  nothing." 

But  this,  in  turn,  made  Fanny  stare.  "Then  noth 
ing,  that  evening  of  the  Embassy  dinner,  passed 
between  you?" 

"On  the  contrary,  everything  passed." 

"Everything ?" 

"Everything.  I  told  him  what  I  knew — and  I  told 
him  how  I  knew  it." 

Mrs.  Assingham  waited.     "And  that  was  all?" 

"Wasn't  it  quite  enough?" 

"Oh,  love,"  she  bridled,  "that's  for  you  to  have 
judged!" 

"Then  I  have  judged,"  said  Maggie — "I  did  judge. 
I  made  sure  he  understood — then  I  let  him  alone." 

Mrs.  Assingham  wondered.  "But  he  didn't  ex 
plain ?" 

"Explain?    Thank  God,  no!"    Maggie  threw 
220 


THE  PRINCESS 

her  head  as  with  horror  at  the  thought,  then  the  next 
moment  added :  "And  I  didn't,  either." 

The  decency  of  pride  in  it  shed  a  cold  little  light 
— yet  as  from  heights  at  the  base  of  which  her  com 
panion  rather  panted.  "But  if  he  neither  denies  nor 
confesses ?" 

"He  does  what's  a  thousand  times  better — he  lets 
it  alone.  He  does,"  Maggie  went  on,  "as  he  would 
do;  as  I  see  now  that  I  was  sure  he  would.  He  lets 
me  alone." 

Fanny  Assingham  turned  it  over.  "Then  how  do 
you  know  so  where,  as  you  say,  you  'are'?" 

"Why,  just  by  that.  I  put  him  in  possession  of  the 
difference;  the  difference  made,  about  me,  by  the  fact 
that  I  hadn't  been,  after  all — though  with  a  won 
derful  chance,  I  admitted,  helping  me — too  stupid 
to  have  arrived  at  knowledge.  He  had  to  see  that 
I'm  changed  for  him — quite  changed  from  the  idea 
of  me  that  he  had  so  long  been  going  on  with. 
It  became  a  question  then  of  his  really  taking  in 
the  change — and  what  I  now  see  is  that  he  is 
doing  so." 

Fanny  followed  as  she  could.  "Which  he  shows 
by  letting  you,  as  you  say,  alone?" 

Maggie  looked  at  her  a  minute.  "And  by  letting 
her." 

Mrs.  Assingham  did  what  she  might  to  embrace 
it — checked  a  little,  however,  by  a  thought  that  was 
the  nearest  approach  she  could  have,  in  this  almost 
too  large  air,  to  an  inspiration.  "Ah,  but  does  Char 
lotte  let  him?" 

221 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"Oh,  that's  another  affair — with  which  I've  prac 
tically  nothing  to  do.  I  dare  say,  however,  she 
doesn't."  And  the  Princess  had  a  more  distant  gaze 
for  the  image  evoked  by  the  question.  "I  don't  in 
fact  well  see  how  she  can.  But  the  point  for  me  is 
that  he  understands." 

"Yes,"  Fanny  Assingham  cooed,  "understands ?" 

"Well,  what  I  want.  I  want  a  happiness  without 
a  hole  in  it  big  enough  for  you  to  poke  in  your 
finger." 

"A  brilliant,  perfect  surface — to  begin  with  at 
least.  I  see." 

"The  golden  bowl — as  it  was  to  have  been."  And 
Maggie  dwelt  musingly  on  this  obscured  figure. 
"The  bowl  with  all  our  happiness  in  it.  The  bowl  with 
out  the  crack." 

For  Mrs.  Assingham  too  the  image  had  its  force, 
and  the  precious  object  shone  before  her  again,  re 
constituted,  plausible,  presentable.  But  wasn't  there 
still  a  piece  missing?  "Yet  if  he  lets  you  alone  and 
you  only  let  him ?" 

"Mayn't  our  doing  so,  you  mean,  be  noticed? — 
mayn't  it  give  us  away?  Well,  we  hope  not — we  try 
not — we  take  such  care.  We  alone  know  what's  be 
tween  us — we  and  you;  and  haven't  you  precisely 
been  struck,  since  you've  been  here,"  Maggie  asked, 
"with  our  making  so  good  a  show?" 

Her  friend  hesitated.     "To  your  father?" 

But  it  made  her  hesitate  too;  she  wouldn't  speak 
of  her  father  directly.  "To  every  one.  To  her — now 
that  you  understand.". 

222 


THE  PRINCESS 

It  held  poor  Fanny  again  in  wonder.  "To  Char 
lotte — yes:  if  there's  so  much  beneath  it,  for  you,  and 
if  it's  all  such  a  plan.  That  makes  it  hang  together — 
it  makes  you  hang  together."  She  fairly  exhaled  her 
admiration.  "You're  like  nobody  else — you're 
extraordinary." 

Maggie  met  it  with  appreciation,  but  with  a  re 
serve.  "No,  I'm  not  extraordinary — but  I  am,  for 
every  one,  quiet." 

"Well,  that's  just  what  is  extraordinary.  'Quiet' 
is  more  than  7  am,  and  you  leave  me  far  behind." 
With  which,  again,  for  an  instant,  Mrs.  Assingham 
frankly  brooded.  "  'Now  that  I  understand/  you 
say — but  there's  one  thing  I  don't  understand."  And 
the  next  minute,  while  her  companion  waited,  she 
had  mentioned  it.  "How  can  Charlotte,  after  all,  not 
have  pressed  him,  not  have  attacked  him  about  it? 
How  can  she  not  have  asked  him — asked  him  on  his 
honour,  I  mean — if  you  know?" 

"How  can  she  'not'?  Why,  of  course,"  said  the 
Princess  limpidly,  "she  must!" 

"Well  then ?" 

"Well  then,  you  think,  he  must  have  told  her? 
Why,  exactly  what  I  mean,"  said  Maggie,  "is  that 
he  will  have  done  nothing  of  the  sort;  will,  as  I  say, 
have  maintained  the  contrary." 

Fanny  Assingham  weighed  it.  "Under  her  direct 
appeal  for  the  truth?" 

"Under  her  direct  appeal  for  the  truth." 

"Her  appeal  to  his  honour?" 

"Her  appeal  to  his  honour.    That's  my  point." 
223 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

Fanny  Assingham  braved  it.  "For  the  truth  as 
from  him  to  her?" 

"From  him  to  any  one." 

Mrs.  Assingham's  face  lighted.  "He'll  simply, 
he'll  insistently  have  lied?" 

Maggie  brought  it  out  roundly.  "He'll  simply, 
he'll  insistently  have  lied." 

It  held  again  her  companion,  who  next,  however, 
with  a  single  movement,  throwing  herself  on  her  neck, 
overflowed.  "Oh,  if  you  knew  how  you  help  me!" 

Maggie  had  liked  her  to  understand,  so  far  as  this 
was  possible;  but  had  not  been  slow  to  see  after 
wards  how  the  possibility  was  limited,  when  one  came 
to  think,  by  mysteries  she  was  not  to  sound.  This 
inability  in  her  was  indeed  not  remarkable,  inasmuch 
as  the  Princess  herself,  as  we  have  seen,  was  only 
now  in  a  position  to  boast  of  touching  bottom. 
Maggie  lived,  inwardly,  in  a  consciousness  that  she 
could  but  partly  open  even  to  so  good  a  friend,  and 
her  own  visitation  of  the  fuller  expanse  of  which  was, 
for  that  matter,  still  going  on.  They  had  been 
duskier  still,  however,  these  recesses  of  her  imagina 
tion — that,  no  doubt,  was  what  might  at  present  be 
said  for  them.  She  had  looked  into  them,  on  the  eve 
of  her  leaving  town,  almost  without  penetration:  she 
had  made  out  in  those  hours,  and  also,  of  a  truth,  dur 
ing  the  days  which  immediately  followed,  little  more 
than  the  strangeness  of  a  relation  having  for  its  chief 
mark — whether  to  be  prolonged  or  not — the  absence 
of  any  "intimate"  result  of  the  crisis  she  had  invited 
her  husband  to  recognise.  They  had  dealt  with  this 

224 


THE  PRINCESS 

crisis  again,  face  to  face,  very  briefly,  the  morning 
after  the  scene  in  her  room — but  with  the  odd  conse 
quence  of  her  having  appeared  merely  to  leave  it  on 
his  hands.  He  had  received  it  from  her  as  he  might 
have  received  a  bunch  of  keys  or  a  list  of  commissions 
— attentive  to  her  instructions  about  them,  but  only 
putting  them,  for  the  time,  very  carefully  and  safely, 
into  his  pocket.  The  instructions  had  seemed,  from 
day  to  day,  to  make  so  little  difference  for  his  be 
haviour — that  is  for  his  speech  or  his  silence;  to 
produce,  as  yet,  so  little  of  the  fruit  of  action.  He 
had  taken  from  her,  on  the  spot,  in  a  word,  before 
going  to  dress  for  dinner,  all  she  then  had  to  give — 
after  which,  on  the  morrow,  he  had  asked  her  for 
more,  a  good  deal  as  if  she  might  have  renewed  her 
supply  during  the  night;  but  he  had  had  at  his  com 
mand  for  this  latter  purpose  an  air  of  extraordinary 
detachment  and  discretion,  an  air  amounting  really 
to  an  appeal  which,  if  she  could  have  brought  herself 
to  describe  it  vulgarly,  she  would  have  described  as 
cool,  just  as  he  himself  would  have  described  it  in 
any  one  else  as  "cheeky";  a  suggestion  that  she 
should  trust  him  on  the  particular  ground  since  she 
didn't  on  the  general.  Neither  his  speech  nor  his 
silence  struck  her  as  signifying  more,  or  less,  under 
this  pressure,  than  they  had  seemed  to  signify  for 
weeks  past;  yet  if  her  sense  hadn't  been  absolutely 
closed  to  the  possibility  in  him  of  any  thought  of 
wounding  her,  she  might  have  taken  his  undisturbed 
manner,  the  perfection  of  his  appearance  of  having 
recovered  himself,  for  one  of  those  intentions  of  high 
VOL.  II.— 15  225 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

impertinence  by  the  aid  of  which  great  people,  Ics 
grands  seigneurs,  persons  of  her  husband's  class  and 
type,  always  know  how  to  re-establish  a  violated 
order. 

It  was  her  one  purely  good  fortune  that  she  could 
feel  thus  sure  impertinence — to  her  at  any  rate — was 
not  among  the  arts  on  which  he  proposed  to  throw 
himself;  for  though  he  had,  in  so  almost  mystifying 
a  manner,  replied  to  nothing,  denied  nothing,  ex 
plained  nothing,  apologised  for  nothing,  he  had 
somehow  conveyed  to  her  that  this  was  not  because 
of  any  determination  to  treat  her  case  as  not  "worth" 
it.  There  had  been  consideration,  on  both  occasions, 
in  the  way  he  had  listened  to  her — even  though  at 
the  same  time  there  had  been  extreme  reserve;  a 
reserve  indeed,  it  was  also  to  be  remembered,  qual 
ified  by  the  fact  that,  on  their  second  and  shorter 
interview,  in  Portland  Place,  and  quite  at  the  end  of 
this  passage,  she  had  imagined  him  positively  pro 
posing  to  her  a  temporary  accommodation.  It  had 
been  but  the  matter  of  something  in  the  depths  of 
the  eyes  he  finally  fixed  upon  her,  and  she  had  found 
in  it,  the  more  she  kept  it  before  her,  the  tacitly- 
offered  sketch  of  a  working  arrangement.  "Leave 
me  my  reserve;  don't  question  it — it's  all  I  have,  just 
now,  don't  you  see?  so  that,  if  you'll  make  me  the 
concession  of  letting  me  alone  with  it  for  as  long  a 
time  as  I  require,  I  promise  you  something  or  other, 
grown  under  cover  of  it,  even  though  I  don't  yet 
quite  make  out  what,  as  a  return  for  your  patience." 
She  had  turned  away  from  him  with  some  such  un- 

226 


THE  PRINCESS 

spoken  words  as  that  in  her  ear,  and  indeed  she  had 
to  represent  to  herself  that  she  had  spiritually  heard 
them,  had  to  listen  to  them  still  again,  to  explain  her 
particular  patience  in  face  of  his  particular  failure. 
He  hadn't  so  much  as  pretended  to  meet  for  an  in 
stant  the  question  raised  by  her  of  her  accepted 
ignorance  of  the  point  in  time,  the  period  before  their 
own  marriage,  from  which  his  intimacy  with  Char 
lotte  dated.  As  an  ignorance  in  which  he  and 
Charlotte  had  been  personally  interested — and  to  the 
pitch  of  consummately  protecting,  for  years,  each 
other's  interest — as  a  condition  so  imposed  upon  her 
the  fact  of  its  having  ceased  might  have  made  it,  on 
the  spot,  the  first  article  of  his  defence.  He  had 
vouchsafed  it,  however,  nothing  better  than  his 
longest  stare  of  postponed  consideration.  That  trib 
ute  he  had  coldly  paid  it,  and  Maggie  might  herself 
have  been  stupefied,  truly,  had  she  not  had  something 
to  hold  on  by,  at  her  own  present  ability,  even  pro 
visional,  to  make  terms  with  a  chapter  of  history  into 
which  she  could  but  a  week  before  not  have  dipped 
without  a  mortal  chill.  At  the  rate  at  which  she  was 
living  she  was  getting  used  hour  by  hour  to  these 
extensions  of  view;  and  when  she  asked  herself,  at 
Fawns,  to  what  single  observation  of  her  own,  in 
London,  the  Prince  had  had  an  affirmation  to  oppose, 
she  but  just  failed  to  focus  the  small  strained  wife 
of  the  moments  in  question  as  some  panting  dancer 
of  a  difficult  step  who  had  capered,  before  the  foot 
lights  of  an  empty  theatre,  to  a  spectator  lounging 
in  a  box. 

227 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

Her  best  comprehension  of  Amerigo's  success  in 
not  committing  himself  was  in  her  recall,  meanwhile, 
of  the  inquiries  he  had  made  of  her  on  their  only 
return  to  the  subject,  and  which  he  had  in  fact  ex 
plicitly  provoked  their  return  in  order  to  make.  He 
had  had  it  over  with  her  again,  the  so  distinctly  re 
markable  incident  of  her  interview7  at  home  with 
the  little  Bloomsbury  shopman.  This  anecdote,  for 
him,  had,  not  altogether  surprisingly,  required  some 
straighter  telling,  and  the  Prince's  attitude  in  pres 
ence  of  it  had  represented  once  more  his  nearest 
approach  to  a  cross-examination.  The  difficulty  in 
respect  to  the  little  man  had  been  for  the  question 
of  his  motive — his  motive  in  writing,  first,  in  the  spirit 
of  retraction,  to  a  lady  with  whom  he  had  made  a 
most  advantageous  bargain,  and  in  then  coming  to 
see  her  so  that  his  apology  should  be  personal. 
Maggie  had  felt  her  explanation  weak;  but  there 
were  the  facts,  and  she  could  give  no  other.  Left 
alone,  after  the  transaction,  with  the  knowledge  that 
his  visitor  designed  the  object  bought  of  him  as  a 
birthday-gift  to  her  father — for  Maggie  confessed 
freely  to  having  chattered  to  him  almost  as  to  a 
friend — the  vendor  of  the  golden  bowl  had  acted  on 
a  scruple  rare  enough  in  vendors  of  any  class,  and 
almost  unprecedented  in  the  thrifty  children  of  Israel. 
He  hadn't  liked  what  he  had  done,  and  what  he  had 
above  all  made  such  a  "good  thing"  of  having  done; 
at  the  thought  of  his  purchaser's  good  faith  and 
charming  presence,  opposed  to  that  flaw  in  her  ac- 
question  which  would  make  it,  verily,  as  an  offering 

228 


THE  PRINCESS 

to  a  loved  parent,  a  thing  of  sinister  meaning  and  evil 
effect,  he  had  known  conscientious,  he  had  known 
superstitious  visitings,  had  given  way  to  a  whim  all 
the  more  remarkable  to  his  own  commercial  mind, 
no  doubt,  from  its  never  having  troubled  him  in  other 
connexions.  She  had  recognised  the  oddity  of  her 
adventure  and  left  it  to  show  for  what  it  was.  She 
had  not  been  unconscious,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
if  it  hadn't  touched  Amerigo  so  nearly  he  would  have 
found  in  it  matter  for  some  amused  reflection.  He 
had  uttered  an  extraordinary  sound,  something  be 
tween  a  laugh  and  a  howl,  on  her  saying,  as  she  had 
made  a  point  of  doing:  "Oh,  most  certainly,  he  told 
me  his  reason  was  because  he  'liked'  me!" — though 
she  remained  in  doubt  of  whether  that  inarticulate 
comment  had  been  provoked  most  by  the  familiari 
ties  she  had  offered  or  by  those  that,  so  pictured,  she 
had  had  to  endure.  That  the  partner  of  her  bar 
gain  had  yearned  to  see  her  again,  that  he  had  plain 
ly  jumped  at  a  pretext  for  it,  this  also  she  had 
frankly  expressed  herself  to  the  Prince  as  having,  in 
no  snubbing,  no  scandalised,  but  rather  in  a  positively 
appreciative  and  indebted  spirit,  not  delayed  to  make 
out.  He  had  wished,  ever  so  seriously,  to  return 
her  a  part  of  her  money,  and  she  had  wholly  declined 
to  receive  it;  and  then  he  had  uttered  his  hope  that 
she  had  not,  at  all  events,  already  devoted  the  crystal 
cup  to  the  beautiful  purpose  she  had,  so  kindly  and 
so  fortunately,  named  to  him.  It  wasn't  a  thing  for 
a  present  to  a  person  she  was  fond  of,  for  she  wouldn't 
wish  to  give  a  present  that  would  bring  ill  luck. 

229 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

That  had  come  to  him — so  that  he  couldn't  rest,  and 
he  should  feel  better  now  that  he  had  told  her.  His 
having  led  her  to  act  in  ignorance  was  what  he  should 
have  been  ashamed  of;  and,  if  she  would  pardon, 
gracious  lady  as  she  was,  all  the  liberties  he  had 
taken,  she  might  make  of  the  bowl  any  use  in  life  but 
that  one. 

It  was  after  this  that  the  most  extraordinary  in 
cident  of  all,  of  course,  had  occurred — his  pointing 
to  the  two  photographs  with  the  remark  that  those 
were  persons  he  knew,  and  that,  more  wonderful  still, 
he  had  made  acquaintance  with  them,  years  before, 
precisely  over  the  same  article.  The  lady,  on  that 
occasion,  had  taken  up  the  fancy  of  presenting  it  to 
the  gentleman,  and  the  gentleman,  guessing  and 
dodging  ever  so  cleverly,  had  declared  that  he 
wouldn't  for  the  world  receive  an  object  under 
such  suspicion.  He  himself,  the  little  man  had  con 
fessed,  wouldn't  have  minded — about  them;  but  he 
had  never  forgotten  either  their  talk  or  their  faces, 
the  impression  altogether  made  by  them,  and,  if 
she  really  wished  to  know,  now,  what  had  per 
haps  most  moved  him,  it  was  the  thought  that 
she  should  ignorantly  have  gone  in  for  a  thing  not 
good  enough  for  other  buyers.  He  had  been  im 
mensely  struck — that  was  another  point — with  this 
accident  of  their  turning  out,  after  so  long,  friends 
of  hers  too:  they  had  disappeared,  and  this  was  the 
only  light  he  had  ever  had  upon  them.  He  had  flushed 
up,  quite  red,  with  his  recognition,  with  all  his  re 
sponsibility — had  declared  that  the  connexion  must 

230 


THE   PRINCESS 

have  had,  mysteriously,  something  to  do  with  the 
impulse  he  had  obeyed.  And  Maggie  had  made,  to 
her  husband,  while  he  again  stood  before  her,  no 
secret  of  the  shock,  for  herself,  so  suddenly  and 
violently  received.  She  had  done  her  best,  even  while 
taking  it  full  in  the  face,  not  to  give  herself  away; 
but  she  wouldn't  answer — no,  she  wouldn't — for  what 
she  might,  in  her  agitation,  have  made  her  informant 
think.  He  might  think  what  he  would — there  had 
been  three  or  four  minutes  during  which,  while  she 
asked  him  question  upon  question,  she  had  doubtless 
too  little  cared.  And  he  had  spoken,  for  his  remem 
brance,  as  fully  as  she  could  have  wished;  he  had 
spoken,  oh,  delightedly,  for  the  "terms"  on  which 
his  other  visitors  had  appeared  to  be  with  each  other, 
and  in  fact  for  that  conviction  of  the  nature  and 
degree  of  their  intimacy  under  which,  in  spite  of  pre 
cautions,  they  hadn't  been  able  to  help  leaving  him. 
He  had  observed  and  judged  and  not  forgotten;  he 
had  been  sure  they  were  great  people,  but  no,  ah  no, 
distinctly,  hadn't  "liked"  them  as  he  liked  the  Signora 
Principessa.  Certainly — she  had  created  no  vague 
ness  about  that — he  had  been  in  possession  of  her 
name  and  address,  for  sending  her  both  her  cup  and 
her  account.  But  the  others  he  had  only,  always, 
wondered  about — he  had  been  sure  they  would  never 
come  back.  And  as  to  the  time  of  their  visit,  he 
could  place  it,  positively,  to  a  day — by  reason  of  a 
transaction  of  importance,  recorded  in  his  books,  that 
had  occurred  but  a  few  hours  later.  He  had  left  her, 
in  short,  definitely  rejoicing  that  he  had  been  able 

231 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

to  make  up  to  her  for  not  having  been  quite  "square" 
over  their  little  business  by  rendering  her,  so  unex 
pectedly,  the  service  of  this  information.  His  joy, 
moreover,  was — as  much  as  Amerigo  would! — a  mat 
ter  of  the  personal  interest  with  which  her  kindness, 
gentleness,  grace,  her  charming  presence  and  easy 
humanity  and  familiarity,  had  inspired  him.  All  of 
which,  while,  in  thought,  Maggie  went  over  it  again 
and  again — oh,  over  any  imputable  rashness  of  her 
own  immediate  passion  and  pain,  as  well  as  over  the 
rest  of  the  straight  little  story  she  had,  after  all,  to 
tell — might  very  conceivably  make  a  long  sum  for  the 
Prince  to  puzzle  out. 

There  were  meanwhile,  after  the  Castledeans  and 
those  invited  to  meet  them  had  gone,  and  before  Mrs. 
Ranee  and  the  Lutches  had  come,  three  or  four  days 
during  which  she  was  to  learn  the  full  extent  of 
her  need  not  to  be  penetrable;  and  then  it  was  indeed 
that  she  felt  all  the  force,  and  threw  herself  upon  all 
the  help,  of  the  truth  she  had  confided,  several  nights 
earlier,  to  Fanny  Assingham.  She  had  known  it  in 
advance,  had  warned  herself  of  it  while  the  house 
was  full:  Charlotte  had  designs  upon  her  of  a  nature 
best  known  to  herself,  and  was  only  waiting  for  the 
better  opportunity  of  their  finding  themselves  less 
companioned.  This  consciousness  had  been  exactly 
at  the  bottom  of  Maggie's  wish  to  multiply  their 
spectators;  there  were  moments  for  her,  positive 
ly,  moments  of  planned  postponement,  of  evasion 
scarcely  less  disguised  than  studied,  during  which 
she  turned  over  with  anxiety  the  different  ways — 

232 


THE   PRINCESS 

there  being  two  or  three  possible  ones — in  which  her 
young  stepmother  might,  at  need,  seek  to  work  upon 
her.  Amerigo's  not  having  "told"  her  of  his  passage 
with  his  wife  gave,  for  Maggie,  altogether  a  new 
aspect  to  Charlotte's  consciousness  and  condition — 
an  aspect  with  which,  for  apprehension,  for  wonder, 
and  even,  at  moments,  inconsequently  enough,  for 
something  like  compassion,  the  Princess  had  now  to 
reckon.  She  asked  herself — for  she  was  capable  of 
that — what  he  had  meant  by  keeping  the  sharer  of 
his  guilt  in  the  dark  about  a  matter  touching  her 
otherwise  so  nearly;  what  he  had  meant,  that  is,  for 
this  unmistakably  mystified  personage  herself.  Mag 
gie  could  imagine  what  he  had  meant  for  her — all 
sorts  of  thinkable  things,  whether  things  of  mere 
"form"  or  things  of  sincerity,  things  of  pity  or  things 
of  prudence:  he  had  meant,  for  instance,  in  all  prob 
ability,  primarily,  to  conjure  away  any  such  ap 
pearance  of  a  changed  relation  between  the  two 
women  as  his  father-in-law  might  notice  and  follow 
up.  It  would  have  been  open  to  him  however,  given 
the  pitch  of  their  intimacy,  to  avert  this  danger  by 
some  more  conceivable  course  with  Charlotte;  since 
an  earnest  warning,  in  fact,  the  full  freedom  of  alarm, 
that  of  his  insisting  to  her  on  the  peril  of  suspicion  in 
curred,  and  on  the  importance  accordingly  of  outward 
peace  at  any  price,  would  have  been  the  course  really 
most  conceivable.  Instead  of  warning  and  advising 
he  had  reassured  and  deceived  her;  so  that  our  young 
woman,  who  had  been,  from  far  back,  by  the  habit 
of  her  nature,  as  much  on  her  guard  against  sac- 

233 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

rificing  others  as  if  she  felt  the  great  trap  of  life 
mainly  to  be  set  for  one's  doing  so,  now  found  herself 
attaching  her  fancy  to  that  side  of  the  situation  of 
the  exposed  pair  which  involved,  for  themselves  at 
least,  the  sacrifice  of  the  least  fortunate. 

She  never,  at  present,  thought  of  what  Amerigo 
might  be  intending,  without  the  reflection,  by  the 
same  stroke,  that,  whatever  this  quantity,  he  was 
leaving  still  more  to  her  own  ingenuity.  He  was 
helping  her,  when  the  thing  came  to  the  test,  only 
by  the  polished,  possibly  almost  too  polished  surface 
his  manner  to  his  wife  wore  for  an  admiring  world; 
and  that,  surely,  was  entitled  to  scarcely  more  than 
the  praise  of  negative  diplomacy.  He  was  keeping 
his  manner  right,  as  she  had  related  to  Mrs.  Assing- 
ham;  the  case  would  have  been  beyond  calculation, 
truly,  if,  on  top  of  everything,  he  had  allowed  it  to 
go  wrong.  She  had  hours  of  exaltation  indeed  when 
the  meaning  of  all  this  pressed  in  upon  her  as  a  tacit 
vow  from  him  to  abide  without  question  by  whatever 
she  should  be  able  to  achieve  or  think  fit  to  prescribe. 
Then  it  was  that,  even  while  holding  her  breath  for 
the  awe  of  it,  she  truly  felt  almost  able  enough  for 
anything.  It  was  as  if  she  had  passed,  in  a  time  in 
credibly  short,  from  being  nothing  for  him  to  being 
all;  it  was  as  if,  rightly  noted,  every  turn  of  his  head, 
every  tone  of  his  voice,  in  these  days,  might  mean  that 
there  was  but  one  way  in  which  a  proud  man  reduced 
to  abjection  could  hold  himself.  During  those  of 
Maggie's  vigils  in  which  that  view  loomed  largest, 
the  image  of  her  husband  that  it  thus  presented  to 

234 


THE  PRINCESS 

her  gave  out  a  beauty  for  the  revelation  of  which  she 
struck  herself  as  paying,  if  anything,  all  too  little.  To 
make  sure  of  it — to  make  sure  of  the  beauty  shining 
out  of  the  humility,  and  of  the  humility  lurking  in 
all  the  pride  of  his  presence — she  would  have  gone 
the  length  of  paying  more  yet,  of  paying  with  dif 
ficulties  and  anxieties  compared  to  which  those 
actually  before  her  might  have  been  as  superficial  as 
headaches  or  rainy  days. 

The  point  at  which  these  exaltations  dropped, 
however,  was  the  point  at  which  it  was  apt  to  come 
over  her  that  if  her  complications  had  been  greater 
the  question  of  paying  would  have  been  limited  still 
less  to  the  liabilities  of  her  own  pocket.  The  com 
plications  were  verily  great  enough,  whether  for 
ingenuities  or  sublimities,  so  long  as  she  had  to  come 
back  to  it  so  often  that  Charlotte,  all  the  while,  could 
only  be  struggling  with  secrets  sharper  than  her  own. 
It  was  odd  how  that  certainty  again  and  again  deter 
mined  and  coloured  her  wonderments  of  detail;  the 
question,  for  instance,  of  how  Amerigo,  in  snatched 
opportunities  of  conference,  put  the  haunted  creature 
off  with  false  explanations,  met  her  particular  chal 
lenges  and  evaded — if  that  was  what  he  did  do! — 
her  particular  demands.  Even  the  conviction  that 
Charlotte  was  but  awaiting  some  chance  really  to 
test  her  trouble  upon  her  lover's  wife  left  Maggie's 
sense  meanwhile  open  as  to  the  sight  of  gilt  wires 
and  bruised  wings,  the  spacious  but  suspended  cage, 
the  home  of  eternal  unrest,  of  pacings,  beatings, 
shakings,  all  so  vain,  into  which  the  baffled  conscious- 

235 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

ness  helplessly  resolved  itself.  The  cage  was  the 
deluded  condition,  and  Maggie,  as  having  known 
delusion — rather! — understood  the  nature  of  cages. 
She  walked  round  Charlotte's — cautiously  and  in  a 
very  wide  circle;  and  when,  inevitably,  they  had  to 
communicate  she  felt  herself,  comparatively,  outside, 
on  the  breast  of  nature,  and  saw  her  companion's 
face  as  that  of  a  prisoner  looking  through  bars.  So 
it  was  that  through  bars,  bars  richly  gilt,  but  firmly, 
though  discreetly,  planted,  Charlotte  finally  struck 
her  as  making  a  grim  attempt;  from  which,  at  first, 
the  Princess  drew  back  as  instinctively  as  if  the  door 
of  the  cage  had  suddenly  been  opened  from  within. 


236 


XXXVI 

THEY  had  been  alone  that  evening — alone  as  a 
party  of  six,  and  four  of  them,  after  dinner,  under 
suggestion  not  to  be  resisted,  sat  down  to  "bridge"  in 
the  smoking-room.  They  had  passed  together  to  that 
apartment,  on  rising  from  table,  Charlotte  and  Mrs. 
Assingham  alike  indulgent,  always,  to  tobacco,  and  in 
fact  practising  an  emulation  which,  as  Fanny  said, 
would,  for  herself,  had  the  Colonel  not  issued  an  inter 
dict  based  on  the  fear  of  her  stealing  his  cigars,  have 
stopped  only  at  the  short  pipe.  Here  cards  had  with 
inevitable  promptness  asserted  their  rule,  the  game 
forming  itself,  as  had  often  happened  before,  of  Mr. 
Verver  with  Mrs.  Assingham  for  partner  and  of  the 
Prince  with  Mrs.  Verver.  The  Colonel,  who  had 
then  asked  of  Maggie  license  to  relieve  his  mind  of  a 
couple  of  letters  for  the  earliest  post  out  on  the  mor 
row,  was  addressing  himself  to  this  task  at  the  other 
end  of  the  room,  and  the  Princess  herself  had  wel 
comed  the  comparatively  hushed  hour — for  the  bridge- 
players  were  serious  and  silent — much  in  the  mood  of 
a  tired  actress  who  has  the  good  fortune  to  be  "off," 
while  her  mates  are  on,  almost  long  enough  for  a  nap 
on  the  property  sofa  in  the  wing.  Maggie's  nap,  had 
she  been  able  to  snatch  forty  winks,  would  have  been 

237 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

of  the  spirit  rather  than  of  the  sense;  yet  as  she  sub 
sided,  near  a  lamp,  with  the  last  salmon-coloured 
French  periodical,  she  was  to  fail,  for  refreshment, 
even  of  that  sip  of  independence. 

There  was  no  question  for  her,  as  she  found,  of  clos 
ing  her  eyes  and  getting  away;  they  strayed  back  to 
life,  in  the  stillness,  over  the  top  of  her  Review;  she 
could  lend  herself  to  none  of  those  refinements  of  the 
higher  criticism  with  which  its  pages  bristled ;  she  was 
there,  where  her  companions  were,  there  again  and 
more  than  ever  there;  it  was  as  if,  of  a  sudden,  they 
had  been  made,  in  their  personal  intensity  and  their 
rare  complexity  of  relation,  freshly  importunate  to  her. 
It  was  the  first  evening  there  had  been  no  one  else. 
Mrs.  Ranee  and  the  Lutches  were  due  the  next  day; 
but  meanwhile  the  facts  of  the  situation  were  upright 
for  her  round  the  green  cloth  and  the  silver  flambeaux ; 
the  fact  of  her  father's  wife's  lover  facing  his  mistress ; 
the  fact  of  her  father  sitting,  all  unsounded  and  un 
blinking,  between  them;  the  fact  of  Charlotte  keeping 
it  up,  keeping  up  everything,  across  the  table,  with 
her  husband  beside  her ;  the  fact  of  Fanny  Assingham, 
wonderful  creature,  placed  opposite  to  the  three  and 
knowing  more  about  each,  probably,  when  one  came  to 
think,  than  either  of  them  knew  of  either.  Erect 
above  all  for  her  was  the  sharp-edged  fact  of  the  rela 
tion  of  the  whole  group,  individually  and  collectively, 
to  herself — herself  so  speciously  eliminated  for  the 
hour,  but  presumably  more  present  to  the  attention  of 
each  than  the  next  card  to  be  played. 

Yes,  under  that  imputation,  to  her  sense,  they  sat — 
238 


THE   PRINCESS 

the  imputation  of  wondering,  beneath  and  behind  all 
their  apparently  straight  play,  if  she  weren't  really 
watching  them  from  her  corner  and  consciously, 
as  might  be  said,  holding  them  in  her  hand.  She  was 
asking  herself  at  last  how  they  could  bear  it — for, 
though  cards  were  as  nought  to  her  and  she  could  fol 
low  no  move,  so  that  she  was  always,  on  such  occa 
sions,  out  of  the  party,  they  struck  her  as  conforming 
alike,  in  the  matter  of  gravity  and  propriety,  to  the 
stiff  standard  of  the  house.  Her  father,  she  knew, 
was  a  high  adept,  one  of  the  greatest — she  had  been 
ever,  in  her  stupidity,  his  small,  his  sole  despair; 
Amerigo  excelled  easily,  as  he  understood  and  prac 
tised  every  art  that  could  beguile  large  leisure;  Mrs. 
Assingham  and  Charlotte,  moreover,  were-  accounted 
as  "good"  as  members  of  a  sex  incapable  of  the  nobler 
consistency  could  be.  Therefore,  evidently,  they  were 
not,  all  so  up  to  their  usual  form,  merely  passing  it  off, 
whether  for  her  or  for  themselves ;  and  the  amount  of 
enjoyed,  or  at  least  achieved,  security  represented  by 
so  complete  a  conquest  of  appearances  was  what  acted 
on  her  nerves,  precisely,  with  a  kind  of  provocative 
force.  She  found  herself,  for  five  minutes,  thrilling 
with  the  idea  of  the  prodigious  effect  that,  just  as  she 
sat  there  near  them,  she  had  at  her  command;  with 
the  sense  that  if  she  were  but  different — oh,  ever  so 
different! — all  this  high  decorum  would  hang  by  a 
hair.  There  reigned  for  her,  absolutely,  during  these 
vertiginous  moments,,  that  fascination  of  the  mon 
strous  that  temptation  of  the  horribly  possible,  which 
we  so  often  trace  by  its  breaking  out  suddenly,  lest 

239 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

it  should  go  further,  in  unexplained  retreats  and  re 
actions. 

After  it  had  been  thus  vividly  before  her  for  a  little 
that,  springing  up  under  her  wrong  and  making  them 
all  start,  stare  and  turn  pale,  she  might  sound  out  their 
doom  in  a  single  sentence,  a  sentence  easy  to  choose 
among  several  of  the  lurid — after  she  had  faced  that 
blinding  light  and  felt  it  turn  to  blackness  she  rose 
from  her  place,  laying  aside  her  magazine,  and  moved 
slowly  round  the  room,  passing  near  the  card-players 
and  pausing  an  instant  behind  the  chairs  in  turn. 
Silent  and  discreet,  she  bent  a  vague  mild  face  upon 
them,  as  if  to  signify  that,  little  as  she  followed  their 
doings,  she  wished  them  well ;  and  she  took  from  each, 
across  the  table,  in  the  common  solemnity,  an  upward 
recognition  which  she  was  to  carry  away  with  her  on 
her  moving  out  to  the  terrace,  a  few  minutes  later. 
Her  father  and  her  husband,  Mrs.  Assingham  and 
Charlotte,  had  done  nothing  but  meet  her  eyes ;  yet  the 
difference  in  these  demonstrations  made  each  a  sepa 
rate  passage — which  was  all  the  more  wonderful  since, 
with  the  secret  behind  every  face,  they  had  alike  tried 
to  look  at  her  through  it  and  in  denial  of  it. 

It  all  left  her,  as  she  wandered  off,  with  the  strangest 
of  impressions — the  sense,  forced  upon  her  as  never 
yet,  of  an  appeal,  a  positive  confidence,  from  the  four 
pairs  of  eyes,  that  was  deeper  than  any  negation,  and 
that  seemed  to  speak,  on  the  part  of  each,  of  some 
relation  to  be  contrived  by  her,  a  relation  with  herself, 
which  would  spare  the  individual  the  danger,  the  actual 
present  strain,  of  the  relation  with  the  others.  They 

240 


THE  PRINCESS 

thus  tacitly  put  it  upon  her  to  be  disposed  of,  the  whole 
complexity  of  their  peril,  and  she  promptly  saw  why : 
because  she  was  there,  and  there  just  as  she  was,  to 
lift  it  off  them  and  take  it ;  to  charge  herself  with  it  as 
the  scapegoat  of  old,  of  whom  she  had  once  seen  a 
terrible  picture,  had  been  charged  with  the  sins  of  the 
people  and  had  gone  forth  into  the  desert  to  sink  under 
his  burden  and  die.  That  indeed  wasn't  their  design 
and  their  interest,  that  she  should  sink  under  hers;  it 
wouldn't  be  their  feeling  that  she  should  do  anything 
but  live,  live  on  somehow  for  their  benefit,  and  even  as 
much  as  possible  in  their  company,  to  keep  proving  to 
them  that  they  had  truly  escaped  and  that  she  was  still 
there  to  simplify.  This  idea  of  her  simplifying,  and 
of  their  combined  struggle,  dim  as  yet  but  steadily 
growing,  toward  the  perception  of  her  adopting  it  from 
them,  clung  to  her  while  she  hovered  on  the  terrace, 
where  the  summer  night  was  so  soft  that  she  scarce 
needed  the  light  shawl  she  had  picked  up.  Several  of 
the  long  windows  of  the  occupied  rooms  stood  open  to 
it,  and  the  light  came  out  in  vague  shafts  and  fell  upon 
the  old  smooth  stones.  The  hour  was  moonless  and 
starless  and  the  air  heavy  and  still — which  was  why, 
in  her  evening  dress,  she  need  fear  no  chill  and  could 
get  away,  in  the  outer  darkness,  from  that  provocation 
of  opportunity  which  had  assaulted  her,  within,  on  her 
sofa,  as  a  beast  might  have  leaped  at  her  throat. 

Nothing  in  fact  was  stranger  than  the  way  in  which, 
when  she  had  remained  there  a  little,  her  companions, 
watched  by  her  through  one  of  the  windows,  actually 
struck  her  as  almost  consciously  and  gratefully  safer. 

VOL.  II.— ifr  241 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

They  might  have  been — really  charming  as  they 
showed  in  the  beautiful  room,  and  Charlotte  certainly, 
as  always,  magnificently  handsome  and  supremely  dis 
tinguished — they  might  have  been  figures  rehearsing 
some  play  of  which  she  herself  was  the  author;  they 
might  even,  for  the  happy  appearance  they  continued 
to  present,  have  been  such  figures  as  would,  by  the 
strong  note  of  character  in  each,  fill  any  author  with  the 
certitude  of  success,  especially  of  their  own  histrionic. 
They  might  in  short  have  represented  any  mystery 
they  would;  the  point  being  predominantly  that  the 
key  to  the  mystery,  the  key  that  could  wind  and  unwind 
it  without  a  snap  of  the  spring,  was  there  in  her  pocket 
— or  rather,  no  doubt,  clasped  at  this  crisis  in  her  hand 
and  pressed,  as  she  walked  back  and  forth,  to  her 
breast.  She  walked  to  the  end  and  far  out  of  the 
light;  she  returned  and  saw  the  others  still  where  she 
had  left  them ;  she  passed  round  the  house  and  looked 
into  the  drawing-room,  lighted  also,  but  empty  now, 
and  seeming  to  speak  the  more,  in  its  own  voice,  of  all 
the  possibilities  she  controlled.  Spacious  and  splen 
did,  like  a  stage  again  awaiting  a  drama,  it  was  a 
scene  she  might  people,  by  the  press  of  her  spring, 
either  with  serenities  and  dignities  and  decencies,  or 
with  terrors  and  shames  and  ruins,  things  as  ugly  as 
those  formless  fragments  of  her  golden  bowl  she  was 
trying  so  hard  to  pick  up. 

She  continued  to  walk  and  continued  to  pause;  she 
stopped  afresh  for  the  look  into  the  smoking-room, 
and  by  this  time — it  was  as  if  the  recognition  had  of 
itself  arrested  her — she  saw  as  in  a  picture,  with  the 

242 


THE   PRINCESS 


temptation  she  had  fled  from  quite  extinct,  why  it  was 
she  had  been  able  to  give  herself  so  little,  from  the 
first,  to  the  vulgar  heat  of  her  wrong.  She  might 
fairly,  as  she  watched  them,  have  missed  it  as  a  lost 
thing ;  have  yearned  for  it,  for  the  straight  vindictive 
view,  the  rights  of  resentment,  the  rages  of  jealousy, 
the  protests  of  passion,  as  for  something  she  had  been 
cheated  of  not  least :  a  range  of  feelings  which  for 
many  women  would  have  meant  so  much,  but  which 
for  her  husband's  wife,  for  her  father's  daughter,  fig 
ured  nothing  nearer  to  experience  than  a  wild  eastern 
caravan,  looming  into  view  with  crude  colours  in  the 
sun,  fierce  pipes  in  the  air,  high  spears  against  the  sky, 
all  a  thrill,  a  natural  joy  to  mingle  with,  but  turning 
off  short  before  it  reached  her  and  plunging  into  other 
defiles.  She  saw  at  all  events  why  horror  itself  had 
almost  failed  her;  the  horror  that,  foreshadowed  in 
advance,  would,  by  her  thought,  have  made  everything 
that  was  unaccustomed  in  her  cry  out  with  pain;  the 
horror  of  finding  evil  seated,  all  at  its  ease,  where  she 
had  only  dreamed  of  good;  the  horror  of  the  thing 
hideously  behind,  behind  so  much  trusted,  so  much  pre 
tended,  nobleness,  cleverness,  tenderness.  It  was  the 
first  sharp  falsity  she  had  known  -in  her  life,  to  touch 
at  all,  or  be  touched  by ;  it  had  met  her  like  some  bad- 
faced  stranger  surprised  in  one  of  the  thick-carpeted 
corridors  of  a  house  of  quiet  on  a  Sunday  afternoon ; 
and  yet,  yes,  amazingly,  she  had  been  able  to  look  at 
terror  and  disgust  only  to  know  that  she  must  put  away 
from  her  the  bitter-sweet  of  their  freshness.  The  sight, 
from  the  window,  of  the  group  so  constituted,  told  her 

243 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

why,  told  her  how,  named  to  her,  as  with  hard  lips, 
named  straight  at  her,  so  that  she  must  take  it  full  in  the 
face,  that  other  possible  relation  to  the  whole  fact  which 
alone  would  bear  upon  her  irresistibly.  It  was  extraor 
dinary  :  they  positively  brought  home  to  her  that  to  feel 
about  them  in  any  of  the  immediate,  inevitable,  as 
suaging  ways,  the  ways  usually  open  to  innocence  out 
raged  and  generosity  betrayed,  would  have  been  to  give 
them  up,  and  that  giving  them  up  was,  marvellously, 
not  to  be  thought  of.  She  had  never,  from  the  first 
hour  of  her  state  of  acquired  conviction,  given  them 
up  so  little  as  now ;  though  she  was,  no  doubt,  as  the 
consequence  of  a  step  taken  a  few  minutes  later,  to  in 
voke  the  conception  of  doing  that,  if  might  be,  even 
less.  She  had  resumed  her  walk — stopping  here  and 
there,  while  she  rested  on  the  cool  smooth  stone  balus 
trade,  to  draw  it  out;  in  the  course  of  which,  after  a 
little,  she  passed  again  the  lights  of  the  empty  draw 
ing-room  and  paused  again  for  what  she  saw  and  felt 
there. 

It  was  not  at  once,  however,  that  this  became  quite 
concrete;  that  was  the  effect  of  her  presently  making 
out  that  Charlotte  was  in  the  room,  launched  and  erect 
there,  in  the  middle;  and  looking  about  her;  that  she 
had  evidently  just  come  round  to  it,  from  her  card- 
table,  by  one  of  the  passages — with  the  expectation,  to 
all  appearance,  of  joining  her  stepdaughter.  She  had 
pulled  up  at  seeing  the  great  room  empty — Maggie  not 
having  passed  out,  on  leaving  the  group,  in  a  manner 
to  be  observed.  So  definite  a  quest  of  her,  with  the 
bridge-party  interrupted  or  altered  for  it,  was  an  im- 

244 


THE  PRINCESS 

pression  that  fairly  assailed  the  Princess,  and  to 
which  something  of  attitude  and  aspect,  of  the  air  of 
arrested  pursuit  and  purpose,  in  Charlotte,  together 
with  the  suggestion  of  her  next  vague  movements, 
quickly  added  its  meaning.  This  meaning  was  that 
she  had  decided,  that  she  had  been  infinitely  conscious 
of  Maggie's  presence  before,  that  she  knew  that  she 
would  at  last  find  her  alone,  and  that  she  wanted  her, 
for  some  reason,  enough  to  have  presumably  called  on 
Bob  Assingham  for  aid.  He  had  taken  her  chair  and 
let  her  go,  and  the  arrangement  was  for  Maggie  a 
signal  proof  of  her  earnestness ;  of  the  energy,  in  fact, 
that,  though  superficially  commonplace  in  a  situation 
in  which  people  weren't  supposed  to  be  watching  each 
other,  was  what  affected  our  young  woman,  on  the 
spot,  as  a  breaking  of  bars.  The  splendid  shining  sup 
ple  creature  was  out  of  the  cage,  was  at  large ;  and  the 
question  now  almost  grotesquely  rose  of  whether  she 
mightn't  by  some  art,  just  where  she  was  and  before 
she  could  go  further,  be  hemmed  in  and  secured.  It 
would  have  been  for  a  moment,  in  this  case,  a  matter 
of  quickly  closing  the  windows  and  giving  the  alarm — 
with  poor  Maggie's  sense  that,  though  she  couldn't 
know  what  she  wanted  of  her,  it  was  enough  for  trep 
idation  that,  at  these  firm  hands,  anything  should  be : 
to  say  nothing  of  the  sequel  of  a  flight  taken  again 
along  the  terrace,  even  under  the  shame  of  the  con 
fessed  feebleness  of  such  evasions  on  the  part  of  an 
outraged  wife.  It  was  to  this  feebleness,  none  the  less, 
that  the  outraged  wife  had  presently  resorted;  the  most 
that  could  be  said  for  her  being,  as  she  felt  while  she 

245 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

finally  stopped  short,  at  a  distance,  that  she  could  at 
any  rate  resist  her  abjection  sufficiently  not  to  sneak 
into  the  house  by  another  way  and  safely  reach  her 
room.  She  had  literally  caught  herself  in  the  act  of 
dodging  and  ducking,  and  it  told  her  there,  vividly,  in 
a  single  word,  what  she  had  all  along  been  most 
afraid  of. 

She  had  been  afraid  of  the  particular  passage  with 
Charlotte  that  would  determine  her  father's  wife  to 
take  him  into  her  confidence  as  she  couldn't  possibly 
as  yet  have  done,  to  prepare  for  him  a  statement  of  her 
wrong,  to  lay  before  him  the  infamy  of  what  she  was 
apparently  suspected  of.  This,  should  she  have  made 
up  her  mind  to  do  it,  would  rest  on  a  calculation  the 
thought  of  which  evoked,  strangely,  other  possibilities 
and  visions.  It  would  show  her  as  sufficiently  believ 
ing  in  her  grasp  of  her  husband  to  be  able  to  assure 
herself  that,  with  his  daughter  thrown  on  the  defen 
sive,  with  Maggie's  cause  and  Maggie's  word,  in  fine, 
against  her  own,  it  wasn't  Maggie's  that  would  most 
certainly  carry  the  day.  Such  a  glimpse  of  her  con 
ceivable  idea,  which  would  be  founded  on  reasons  all 
her  own,  reasons  of  experience  and  assurance,  impen 
etrable  to  others,  but  intimately  familiar  to  herself — 
such  a  glimpse  opened  out  wide  as  soon  as  it  had  come 
into  view ;  for  if  so  much  as  this  was  still  firm  ground 
between  the  elder  pair,  if  the  beauty  of  appearances  had 
been  so  consistently  preserved,  it  was  only  the  golden 
bowl  as  Maggie  herself  knew  it  that  had  been  broken. 
The  breakage  stood  not  for  any  wrought  discomposure 
among  the  triumphant  three — it  stood  merely  for  the 

246 


THE   PRINCESS 

dire  deformity  of  her  attitude  toward  them.  She  was 
unable  at  the  minute,  of  course,  fully  to  measure  the 
difference  thus  involved  for  her,  and  it  remained  in 
evitably  an  agitating  image,  the  way  it  might  be  held 
over  her  that  if  she  didn't,  of  her  own  prudence,  sat 
isfy  Charlotte  as  to  the  reference,  in  her  mocking  spirit, 
of  so  much  of  the  unuttered  and  unutterable,  of  the 
constantly  and  unmistakably  implied,  her  father  would 
be  invited  without  further  ceremony  to  recommend 
her  to  do  so.  But  any  confidence,  any  latent  operating 
insolence,  that  Mrs.  Verver  should,  thanks  to  her  large 
native  resources,  continue  to  be  possessed  of  and  to 
hold  in  reserve,  glimmered  suddenly  as  a  possible 
working  light  and  seemed  to  offer,  for  meeting  her,  a 
new  basis  and  something  like  a  new  system.  Maggie 
felt,  truly,  a  rare  contraction  of  the  heart  on  making 
out,  the  next  instant,  what  the  new  system  would  prob 
ably  have  to  be — and  she  had  practically  done  that 
before  perceiving  that  the  thing  she  feared  had  already 
taken  place.  Charlotte,  extending  "her  search,  ap 
peared  now  to  define  herself  vaguely  in  the  distance; 
of  this,  after  an  instant,  the  Princess  was  sure,  though 
the  darkness  was  thick,  for  the  projected  clearness  of 
the  smoking-room  windows  had  presently  contributed 
its  help.  Her  friend  came  slowly  into  that  circle — 
having  also,  for  herself,  by  this  time,  not  indistin- 
guishably  discovered  that  Maggie  was  on  the  terrace. 
Maggie,  from  the  end,  saw  her  stop  before  one  of  the 
windows  to  look  at  the  group  within,  and  then  saw  her 
come  nearer  and  pause  again,  still  with  a  considerable 
length  of  the  place  between  them. 

247 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

Yes,  Charlotte  had  seen  she  was  watching  her  from 
afar,  and  had  stopped  now  to  put  her  further  atten 
tion  to  the  test.  Her  face  was  fixed  on  her,  through 
the  night;  she  was  the  creature  who  had  escaped  by 
force  from  her  cage,  yet  there  was  in  her  whole  motion 
assuredly,  even  as  so  dimly  discerned,  a  kind  of  por 
tentous  intelligent  stillness.  She  had  escaped  with  an 
intention,  but  with  an  intention  the  more  definite  that 
it  could  so  accord  with  quiet  measures.  The  two 
women,  at  all  events,  only  hovered  there,  for  these  first 
minutes,  face  to  face  over  their  interval  and  exchang 
ing  no  sign;  the  intensity  of  their  mutual  look  might 
have  pierced  the  night,  and  Maggie  was  at  last  to  start 
with  the  scared  sense  of  having  thus  yielded  to  doubt, 
to  dread,  to  hesitation,  for  a  time  that,  with  no  other 
proof  needed,  would  have  completely  given  her  away. 
How  long  had  she  stood  staring  ? — a  single  minute  or 
five?  Long  enough,  in  any  case,  to  have  felt  herself 
absolutely  take  from  her  visitor  something  that  the  lat 
ter  threw  upon  her,  irresistibly,  by  this  effect  of  silence, 
by  this  effect  of  waiting  and  watching,  by  this  effect, 
unmistakably,  of  timing  her  indecision  and  her  fear. 
If  then,  scared  and  hanging  back,  she  had,  as  was  so 
evident,  sacrificed  all  past  pretences,  it  would  have  been 
with  the  instant  knowledge  of  an  immense  advantage 
gained  that  Charlotte  finally  saw  her  come  on.  Mag 
gie  came  on  with  her  heart  in  her  hands ;  she  came  on 
with  the  definite  prevision,  throbbing  like  the  tick  of  a 
watch,  of  a  doom  impossibly  sharp  and  hard,  but  to 
which,  after  looking  at  it  with  her  eyes  wide  open,  she 
had  none  the  less  bowed  her  head.  By  the  time  she 

248 


THE   PRINCESS 

was  at  her  companion's  side,  for  that  matter,  by  the 
time  Charlotte  had,  without  a  motion,  without  a  word, 
simply  let  her  approach  and  stand  there,  her  head  was 
already  on  the  block,  so  that  the  consciousness  that 
everything  had  now  gone  blurred  all  perception  of 
whether  or  no  the  axe  had  fallen.  Oh,  the  "advan 
tage,"  it  was  perfectly  enough,  in  truth,  with  Mrs.  Ver- 
ver ;  for  what  was  Maggie's  own  sense  but  that  of  hav 
ing  been  thrown  over  on  her  back,  with  her  neck,  from 
the  first,  half  broken  and  her  helpless  face  staring  up? 
That  position  only  could  account  for  the  positive 
grimace  of  weakness  and  pain  produced  there  by  Char 
lotte's  dignity. 

"I've  come  to  join  you — I  thought  you  would  be 
here." 

"Oh  yes,  I'm  here,"  Maggie  heard  herself  return  a 
little  flatly. 

"It's  too  close  in-doors." 

"Very — but  close  even  here."  Charlotte  was  still 
and  grave — she  had  even  uttered  her  remark  about  the 
temperature  with  an  expressive  weight  that  verged 
upon  solemnity;  so  that  Maggie,  reduced  to  looking 
vaguely  about  at  the  sky,  could  only  feel  her  not 
fail  of  her  purpose.  "The  air's  heavy  as  if  with  thun 
der — I  think  there'll  be  a  storm."  She  made  the 
suggestion  to  carry  off  an  awkwardness — which  was  a 
part,  always,  of  her  companion's  gain;  but  the 
awkwardness  didn't  diminish  in  the  silence  that  fol 
lowed.  Charlotte  had  said  nothing  in  reply;  her  brow 
was  dark  as  with  a  fixed  expression,  and  her  high 
elegance,  her  handsome  head  and  long,  straight  neck 

249 


testified,  through  the  dusk,  to  their  inveterate  com 
pleteness  and  noble  erectness.  It  was  as  if  what  she 
had  come  out  to  do  had  already  begun,  and  when, 
as  a  consequence,  Maggie  had  said  helplessly,  "Don't 
you  want  something?  won't  you  have  my  shawl?" 
everything  might  have  crumbled  away  in  the  com 
parative  poverty  of  the  tribute.  Mrs.  Verver's 
rejection  of  it  had  the  brevity  of  a  sign  that  they 
hadn't  closed  in  for  idle  words,  just  as  her  dim, 
serious  face,  uninterruptedly  presented  until  they 
moved  again,  might  have  represented  the  success 
with  which  she  watched  all  her  message  penetrate. 
They  presently  went  back  the  way  she  had  come, 
but  she  stopped  Maggie  again  within  range  of  the 
smoking-room  window  and  made  her  stand  where 
the  party  at  cards  would  be  before  her.  Side  by  side, 
for  three  minutes,  they  fixed  this  picture  of  quiet 
harmonies,  the  positive  charm  of  it  and,  as  might  have 
been  said,  the  full  significance — which,  as  was  now 
brought  home  to  Maggie,  could  be  no  more,  after 
all,  than  a  matter  of  interpretation,  differing  always 
for  a  different  interpreter.  As  she  herself  had 
hovered  in  sight  of  it  a  quarter-of-an-hour  before,  it 
would  have  been  a  thing  for  her  to  show  Charlotte 
— to  show  in  righteous  irony,  in  reproach  too  stern 
for  anything  but  silence.  But  now  it  was  she  who 
was  being  shown  it,  and  shown  it  by  Charlotte,  and 
she  saw  quickly  enough  that,  as  Charlotte  showed 
it,  so  she  must  at  present  submissively  seem  to 
take  it. 

The  others  were  absorbed  and  unconscious,  either 
250 


THE  PRINCESS 

silent  over  their  game  or  dropping  remarks  unheard 
on  the  terrace;  and  it  was  to  her  father's  quiet 
face,  discernibly  expressive  of  nothing  that  was 
in  his  daughter's  mind,  that  our  young  woman's 
attention  was  most  directly  given.  His  wife  and  his 
daughter  were  both  closely  watching  him,  and  to 
which  of  them,  could  he  have  been  notified  of 
this,  would  his  raised  eyes  first,  all  impulsively, 
have  responded;  in  which  of  them  would  he  have 
felt  it  most  important  to  destroy — for  his  clutch 
at  the  equilibrium — any  germ  of  uneasiness?  Not 
yet,  since  his  marriage,  had  Maggie  so  sharply 
and  so  formidably  known  her  old  possession  of  him 
as  a  thing  divided  and  contested.  She  was  looking 
at  him  by  Charlotte's  leave  and  under  Charlotte's 
direction;  quite  in  fact  as  if  the  particular  way  she 
should  look  at  him  were  prescribed  to  her;  quite, 
even,  as  if  she  had  been  defied  to  look  at  him  in  any 
other.  It  came  home  to  her  too  that  the  challenge 
wasn't,  as  might  be  said,  in  his  interest  and  for  his 
protection,  but,  pressingly,  insistently,  in  Charlotte's, 
for  that  of  her  security  at  any  price.  She  might 
verily,  by  this  dumb  demonstration,  have  been  naming 
to  Maggie  the  price,  naming  it  as  a  question  for 
Maggie  herself,  a  sum  of  money  that  she,  properly, 
was  to  find.  She  must  remain  safe  and  Maggie  must 
pay — what  she  was  to  pay  with  being  her  own  affair. 
Straighter  than  ever,  thus,  the  Princess  again  felt 
it  all  put  upon  her,  and  there  was  a  minute,  just  a 
supreme  instant,  during  which  there  burned  in  her 
a  wild  wish  that  her  father  would  only  look  up.  It 

251 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

throbbed  for  these  seconds  as  a  yearning  appeal  to 
him — she  would  chance  it,  that  is,  if  he  would  but 
just  raise  his  eyes  and  catch  them,  across  the  larger 
space,  standing  in  the  outer  dark  together.  Then 
he  might  be  affected  by  the  sight,  taking  them  as  they 
were;  he  might  make  some  sign — she  scarce  knew 
what — that  would  save  her;  save  her  from  being  the 
one,  this  way,  to  pay  all.  He  might  somehow  show 
a  preference — distinguishing  between  them;  might, 
out  of  pity  for  her,  signal  to  her  that  this  extremity 
of  her  effort  for  him  was  more  than  he  asked.  That 
represented  Maggie's  one  little  lapse  from  con 
sistency — the  sole  small  deflection  in  the  whole 
course  of  her  scheme.  It  had  come  to  nothing  the 
next  minute,  for  the  dear  man's  eyes  had  never 
moved,  and  Charlotte's  hand,  promptly  passed  into 
her  arm,  had  already,  had  very  firmly  drawn  her  on 
— quite,  for  that  matter,  as  from  some  sudden,  some 
equal  perception  on  her  part  too  of  the  more  ways 
than  one  in  which  their  impression  could  appeal. 
They  retraced  their  steps  along  the  rest  of  the  ter 
race,  turning  the  corner  of  the  house,  and  presently 
came  abreast  of  the  other  windows,  those  of  the 
pompous  drawing-room,  still  lighted  and  still  empty. 
Here  Charlotte  again  paused,  and  it  was  again  as  if 
she  were  pointing  out  what  Maggie  had  observed  for 
herself,  the  very  look  the  place  had  of  being  vivid  in 
its  stillness,  of  having,  with  all  its  great  objects  as 
ordered  and  balanced  as  for  a  formal  reception,  been 
appointed  for  some  high  transaction,  some  real  affair 
of  state.  In  presence  of  this  opportunity  she  faced 

252 


THE  PRINCESS 

her  companion  once  more;  she  traced  in  her  the  effect 
of  everything  she  had  already  communicated;  she 
signified,  with  the  same  success,  that  the  terrace  and 
the  sullen  night  would  bear  too  meagre  witness  to 
the  completion  of  her  idea.  Soon  enough  then, 
within  the  room,  under  the  old  lustres  of  Venice  and 
the  eyes  of  the  several  great  portraits,  more  or  less 
contemporary  with  these,  that  awaited  on  the  walls 
of  Fawns  their  final  far  migration — soon  enough 
Maggie  found  herself  staring,  and  at  first  all  too 
gaspingly,  at  the  grand  total  to  which  each  separate 
demand  Mrs.  Verver  had  hitherto  made  upon  her, 
however  she  had  made  it,  now  amounted. 

"I've  been  wanting — and  longer  than  you'd  per 
haps  believe — to  put  a  question  to  you  for  which  no 
opportunity  has  seemed  to  me  yet  quite  so  good  as 
this.  It  would  have  been  easier  perhaps  if  you  had 
struck  me  as  in  the  least  disposed  ever  to  give  me 
one.  I  have  to  take  it  now,  you  see,  as  I  find  it." 
They  stood  in  the  centre  of  the  immense  room,  and 
Maggie  could  feel  that  the  scene  .of  life  her  imagina 
tion  had  made  of  it  twenty  minutes  before  was  by 
this  time  sufficiently  peopled.  These  few  straight 
words  filled  it  to  its  uttermost  reaches,  and  nothing 
was  now  absent  from  her  consciousness,  either,  of 
the  part  she  was  called  upon  to  play  in  it.  Char 
lotte  had  marched  straight  in,  dragging  her  rich 
train;  she  rose  there  beautiful  and  free,  with  her 
whole  aspect  and  action  attuned  to  the  firmness  of 
her  speech.  Maggie  had  kept  the  shawl  she  had 
taken  out  with  her,  and,  clutching  it  tight  in  her 

253 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

nervousness,  drew  it  round  her  as  if  huddling  in  it  for 
shelter,  covering  herself  with  it  for  humility.  She 
looked  out  as  from  under  an  improvised  hood — the 
sole  headgear  of  some  poor  woman  at  somebody's 
proud  door;  she  waited  even  like  the  poor  woman; 
she  met  her  friend's  eyes  with  recognitions  she 
couldn't  suppress.  She  might  sound  it  as  she  could 
— "What  question  then?" — everything  in  her,  from 
head  to  foot,  crowded  it  upon  Charlotte  that  she 
knew.  She  knew  too  well — that  she  was  showing; 
so  that  successful  vagueness,  to  save  some  scrap  of 
her  dignity  from  the  imminence  of  her  defeat,  was 
already  a  lost  cause,  and  the  one  thing  left  was  if 
possible,  at  any  cost,  even  that  of  stupid  inconse 
quence,  to  try  to  look  as  if  she  weren't  afraid.  If  she 
could  but  appear  at  all  not  afraid  she  might  ap 
pear  a  little  not  ashamed — that  is  not  ashamed 
to  be  afraid,  which  was  the  kind  of  shame  that 
could  be  fastened  on  her,  it  being  fear  all  the 
while  that  moved  her.  Her  challenge,  at  any  rate, 
her  wonder,  her  terror — the  blank,  blurred  surface, 
whatever  it  was  that  she  presented — became  a  mix 
ture  that  ceased  to  signify;  for  to  the  accumulated 
advantage  by  which  Charlotte  was  at  present  sus 
tained  her  next  words  themselves  had  little  to  add. 
"Have  you  any  ground  of  complaint  of  me?  Is  there 
any  wrong  you  consider  I've  done  you?  I  feel  at 
last  that  I've  a  right  to  ask  you." 

Their  eyes  had  to  meet  on  it,  and  to  meet  long; 
Maggie's  avoided  at  least  the  disgrace  of  looking 
away.  "What  makes  you  want  to  ask  it?" 

254 


THE   PRINCESS 

"My  natural  desire  to  know.  You've  done  that, 
for  so  long,  little  justice." 

Maggie  waited  a  moment.  "For  so  long?  You 
mean  you've  thought ?"  • 

"I  mean,  my  dear,  that  I've  seen.  I've  seen,  week 
after  week,  that  you  seemed  to  be  thinking — of  some 
thing  that  perplexed  or  worried  you.  Is  it  anything 
for  which  I'm  in  any  degree  responsible?" 

Maggie  summoned  all  her  powers.  "What  in  the 
world  should  it  be?" 

"Ah,  that's  not  for  me  to  imagine,  and  I  should 
be  very  sorry  to  have  to  try  to  say!  I'm  aware  of  no 
point  whatever  at  which  I  may  have  failed  you,"  said 
Charlotte;  "nor  of  any  at  which  I  may  have  failed 
any  one  in  whom  I  can  suppose  you  sufficiently  in 
terested  to  care.  If  I've  been  guilty  of  some  fault 
I've  committed  it  all  unconsciously,  and  am  only 
anxious  to  hear  from  you  honestly  about  it.  But  if 
I've  been  mistaken  as  to  what  I  speak  of — the  differ 
ence,  more  and  more  marked,  as  I've  thought,  in 
all  your  manner  to  me — why,  obviously,  so  much  the 
better.  No  form  of  correction  received  from  you 
could  give  me  greater  satisfaction." 

She  spoke,  it  struck  her  companion,  with  rising, 
with  extraordinary  ease;  as  if  hearing  herself  say  it 
all,  besides  seeing  the  way  it  was  listened  to,  helped 
her  from  point  to  point.  She  saw  she  was  right — 
that  this  was  the  tone  for  her  to  take  and  the  thing 
for  her  to  do,  the  thing  as  to  which  she  was  prob 
ably  feeling  that  she  had  in  advance,  in  her  delays 
and  uncertainties,  much  exaggerated  the  difficulty. 

255 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

The  difficulty  was  small,  and  it  grew  smaller  as  her 
adversary  continued  to  shrink;  she  was  not  only 
doing  as  she  wanted,  but  had  by  this  time  effectively 
done  it  and  hung  it  up.  All  of  which  but  deepened 
Maggie's  sense  of  the  sharp  and  simple  need,  now,  of 
seeing  her  through  to  the  end.  "  'If  you've  been 
mistaken,  you  say?" — and  the  Princess  but  barely 
faltered.  "You  have  been  mistaken." 

Charlotte  looked  at  her  splendidly  hard.  "You're 
perfectly  sure  it's  all  my  mistake?" 

"All  I  can  say  is  that  you've  received  a  false  im 
pression." 

"Ah  then — so  much  the  better!  From  the  moment 
I  had  received  it  I  knew  I  must  sooner  or  later  speak 
of  it — for  that,  you  see,  is,  systematically,  my  way. 
And  now,"  Charlotte  added,  "you  make  me  glad  I've 
spoken.  I  thank  you  very  much." 

It  was  strange  how  for  Maggie  too,  with  this, 
the  difficulty  seemed  to  sink.  Her  companion's  ac 
ceptance  of  her  denial  was  like  a  general  pledge  not 
to  keep  things  any  worse  for  her  than  they  essentially 
had  to  be;  it  positively  helped  her  to  build  up  her 
falsehood — to  which,  accordingly,  she  contributed 
another  block.  "I've  affected  you  evidently — quite 
accidentally — in  some  way  of  which  I've  been  all 
unaware.  I've  not  felt  at  any  time  that  you've 
wronged  me." 

"How  could  I  come  within  a  mile,"  Charlotte  in 
quired,  "of  such  a  possibility?" 

Maggie,  with  her  eyes  on  her  more  easily  now, 
made  no  attempt  to  say;  she  said,  after  a  little,  some- 

256 


THE   PRINCESS 

thing  more  to  the  present  point.  "I  accuse  you — 
I  accuse  you  of  nothing." 

"Ah,  that's  lucky!" 

Charlotte  had  brought  this  out  with  the  richness, 
almost,  of  gaiety;  and  Maggie,  to  go  on,  had  to 
think,  with  her  own  intensity,  of  Amerigo — to  think 
how  he,  on  his  side,  had  had  to  go  through  with  his 
lie  to  her,  how  it  was  for  his  wife  he  had  done  so, 
and  how  his  doing  so  had  given  her  the  clue  and  set 
her  the  example.  He  must  have  had  his  own  dif 
ficulty  about  it,  and  she  was  not,  after  all,  falling  be 
low  him.  It  was  in  fact  as  if,  thanks  to  her  hovering 
image  of  him  confronted  with  this  admirable  creature 
even  as  she  was  confronted,  there  glowed  upon  her 
from  afar,  yet  straight  and  strong,  a  deep  explan 
atory  light  which  covered  the  last  inch  of  the  ground. 
He  had  given  her  something  to  conform  to,  and  she 
hadn't  unintelligently  turned  on  him,  "gone  back  on" 
him,  as  he  would  have  said,  by  not  conforming.  They 
were  together  thus,  he  and  she,  close,  close  together 
— whereas  Charlotte,  though  rising  there  radiantly 
before  her,  was  really  off  in  some  darkness  of  space 
that  would  steep  her  in  solitude  and  harass  her  with 
care.  The  heart  of  the  Princess  swelled,  accordingly, 
even  in  her  abasement;  she  had  kept  in  tune  with  the 
right,  and  something,  certainly,  something  that  might 
be  like  a  rare  flower  snatched  from  an  impossible 
ledge,  would,  and  possibly  soon,  come  of  it  for  her. 
The  right,  the  right — yes,  it  took  this  extraordinary 
form  of  her  humbugging,  as  she  had  called  it,  to  the 
end.  It  was  only  a  question  of  not,  by  a  hair's  breadth, 
VOL.  ii.— 17  257 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

deflecting  into  the  truth.  So,  supremely,  was  she 
braced.  "You  must  take  it  from  me  that  your 
anxiety  rests  quite  on  a  misconception.  You  must 
take  it  from  me  that  I've  never  at  any  moment  fan 
cied  I  could  suffer  by  you."  And,  marvellously,  she 
kept  it  up — not  only  kept  it  up,  but  improved  on  it. 
"You  must  take  it  from  me  that  I've  never  thought 
of  you  but  as  beautiful,  wonderful  and  good.  Which 
is  all,  I  think,  that  you  can  possibly  ask." 

Charlotte  held  her  a  moment  longer:  she  needed 
—not  then  to  have  appeared  only  tactless — the  last 
word.  "It's  much  more,  my  dear,  than  I  dreamed 
of  asking.  I  only  wanted  your  denial." 

"Well  then,  you  have  it." 

"Upon  your  honour?" 

"Upon  my  honour." 

And  she  made  a  point  even,  our  young  woman, 
of  not  turning  away.  Her  grip  of  her  shawl  had 
loosened — she  had  let  it  fall  behind  her;  but  she  stood 
there  for  anything  more  and  till  the  weight  should 
be  lifted.  With  which  she  saw  soon  enough  what 
more  was  to  come.  She  saw  it  in  Charlotte's  face, 
and  felt  it  make  between  them,  in  the  air,  a  chill 
that  completed  the  coldness  of  their  conscious 
perjury.  "Will  you  kiss  me  on  it  then?" 

She  couldn't  say  yes,  but  she  didn't  say  no;  what 
availed  her  still,  however,  was  to  measure,  in  her 
passivity,  how  much  too  far  Charlotte  had  come  to 
retreat.  But  there  was  something  different  also, 
something  for  which,  while  her  cheek  received  the 
prodigious  kiss,  she  had  her  opportunity — the  sight 

258 


THE   PRINCESS 

of  the  others,  who,  having  risen  from  their  cards  to 
join  the  absent  members  of  their  party,  had  reached 
the  open  door  at  the  end  of  the  room  and  stopped 
short,  evidently,  in  presence  of  the  demonstration 
that  awaited  them.  Her  husband  and  her  father  were 
in  front,  and  Charlotte's  embrace  of  her — which 
wasn't  to  be  distinguished,  for  them,  either,  she  felt, 
from  her  embrace  of  Charlotte — took  on  with  their 
arrival  a  high  publicity. 


259 


XXXVII 

HER  father  had  asked  her,  three  days  later,  in  an 
interval  of  calm,  how  she  was  affected,  in  the  light 
of  their  reappearance  and  of  their  now  perhaps  richer 
fruition,  by  Dotty  and  Kitty,  and  by  the  once  for 
midable  Mrs.  Ranee;  and  the  consequence  of  this 
inquiry  had  been,  for  the  pair,  just  such  another  stroll 
together,  away  from  the  rest  of  the  party  and  off 
into  the  park,  as  had  asserted  its  need  to  them  on 
the  occasion  of  the  previous  visit  of  these  anciently 
more  agitating  friends — that  of  their  long  talk,  on 
a  sequestered  bench  beneath  one  of  the  great  trees, 
when  the  particular  question  had  come  up  for  them 
the  then  purblind  discussion  of  which,  at  their  en 
joyed  leisure,  Maggie  had  formed  the  habit  of 
regarding  as  the  "first  beginning"  of  their  present 
situation.  The  whirligig  of  time  had  thus  brought 
round  for  them  again,  on  their  finding  themselves 
face  to  face  while  the  others  were  gathering  for  tea 
on  the  terrace,  the  same  odd  impulse  quietly  to 
"slope" — so  Adam  Verver  himself,  as  they  went,  fa 
miliarly  expressed  it — that  had  acted,  in  its  way,  of 
old;  acted  for  the  distant  autumn  afternoon  and  for 
the  sharpness  of  their  since  so  outlived  crisis.  It 
might  have  been  funny  to  them  now  that  the  pres- 

260 


THE  PRINCESS 

ence  of  Mrs.  Ranee  and  the  Lutches — and  with 
symptoms,  too,  at  that  time  less  developed — had 
once,  for  their  anxiety  and  their  prudence,  consti 
tuted  a  crisis;  it  might  have  been  funny  that  these 
ladies  could  ever  have  figured,  to  their  imagination, 
as  a  symbol  of  dangers  vivid  enough  to  precipitate 
the  need  of  a  remedy.  This  amount  of  entertainment 
and  assistance  they  were  indeed  disposed  to  extract 
from  their  actual  impressions;  they  had  been  finding 
it,  for  months  past,  by  Maggie's  view,  a  resource  and 
a  relief  to  talk,  with  an  approach  to  intensity,  when 
they  met,  of  all  the  people  they  weren't  really  think 
ing  of  and  didn't  really  care  about,  the  people  with 
whom  their  existence  had  begun  almost  to  swarm; 
and  they  closed  in  at  present  round  the  spectres  of 
their  past,  as  they  permitted  themselves  to  describe 
the  three  ladies,  with  a  better  imitation  of  enjoying 
their  theme  than  they  had  been  able  to  achieve,  cer 
tainly,  during  the  stay,  for  instance,  of  the  Castle- 
deans.  The  Castledeans  were  a  new  joke,  compar 
atively,  and  they  had  had — always  to  Maggie's  view 
— to  teach  themselves  the  way  of  it;  whereas  the 
Detroit,  the  Providence  party,  rebounding  so  from 
Providence,  from  Detroit,  was  an  old  and  ample  one, 
of  which  the  most  could  be  made  and  as  to  which  a 
humorous  insistence  could  be  guarded. 

Sharp  and  sudden,  moreover,  this  afternoon,  had 
been  their  wellnigh  confessed  desire  just  to  rest  to 
gether,  a  little,  as  from  some  strain  long  felt  but  never 
named;  to  rest,  as  who  should  say,  shoulder  to  shoul 
der  and  hand  in  hand,  each  pair  of  eyes  so  yearningly 

261 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

— and  indeed  what  could  it  be  but  so  wearily? — closed 
as  to  render  the  collapse  safe  from  detection  by  the 
other  pair.  It  was  positively  as  if,  in  short,  the  in 
ward  felicity  of  their  being  once  more,  perhaps  only 
for  half-an-hour,  simply  daughter  and  father  had 
glimmered  out  for  them,  and  they  had  picked  up  the 
pretext  that  would  make  it  easiest.  They  were  hus 
band  and  wife — oh,  so  immensely! — as  regards  other 
persons;  but  after  they  had  dropped  again  on  their 
old  bench,  conscious  that  the  party  on  the  terrace, 
augmented,  as  in  the  past,  by  neighbours,  would  do 
beautifully  without  them,  it  was  wonderfully  like 
their  having  got  together  into  some  boat  and  pad 
dled  off  from  the  shore  where  husbands  and  wives, 
luxuriant  complications,  made  the  air  too  tropical. 
In  the  boat  they  were  father  and  daughter,  and  poor 
Dotty  and  Kitty  supplied  abundantly,  for  their  sit 
uation,  the  oars  or  the  sail.  Why,  into  the  bargain, 
for  that  matter — this  came  to  Maggie — couldn't  they 
always  live,  so  far  as  they  lived  together,  in  a  boat? 
She  felt  in  her  face,  with  the  question,  the  breath  of 
a  possibility  that  soothed  her;  they  needed  only  know 
each  other,  henceforth,  in  the  unmarried  relation. 
That  other  sweet  evening,  in  the  same  place,  he  had 
been  as  unmarried  as  possible — which  had  kept  down, 
so  to  speak,  the  quantity  of  change  in  their  state. 
Well  then,  that  other  sweet  evening  was  what  the 
present  sweet  evening  would  resemble;  with  the  quite 
calculable  effect  of  an  exquisite  inward  refreshment. 
They  had,  after  all,  whatever  happened,  always  and 
ever  each  other;  each  other — that  was  the  hidden 

262 


THE   PRINCESS 

treasure  and  the  saving  truth — to  do  exactly  what 
they  would  with:  a  provision  full  of  possibilities. 
Who  could  tell,  as  yet,  what,  thanks  to  it,  they 
wouldn't  have  done  before  the  end? 

They  had  meanwhile  been  tracing  together,  in  the 
golden  air  that,  toward  six  o'clock  of  a  July  after 
noon,  hung  about  the  massed  Kentish  woods,  several 
features  of  the  social  evolution  of  her  old  playmates, 
still  beckoned  on,  it  would  seem,  by  unattainable 
ideals,  still  falling  back,  beyond  the  sea,  to  their  na 
tive  seats,  for  renewals  of  the  moral,  financial, 
conversational — one  scarce  knew  what  to  call  it — 
outfit,  and  again  and  forever  reappearing  like  a  tribe 
of  Wandering  Jewesses.  Our  couple  had  finally  ex 
hausted,  however,  the  study  of  these  annals,  and 
Maggie  was  to  take  up,  after  a  drop,  a  different  mat 
ter,  or  one  at  least  with  which  the  immediate 
connection  was  not  at  first  apparent.  "Were  you 
amused  at  me  just  now — when  I  wondered  what  other 
people  could  wish  to  struggle  for?  Did  you  think 
me,"  she  asked  with  some  earnestness — "well, 
fatuous?" 

"  'Fatuous'?" — he  seemed  at  a  loss. 

"I  mean  sublime  in  our  happiness — as  if  looking 
down  from  a  height.  Or,  rather,  sublime  in  our  gen 
eral  position — that's  what  I  mean."  She  spoke  as 
from  the  habit  of  her  anxious  conscience — something 
that  disposed  her  frequently  to  assure  herself,  for  her 
human  commerce,  of  the  state  of  the  "books"  of  the 
spirit.  "Because  I  don't  at  all  want,"  she  explained, 
"to  be  blinded,  or  made  'sniffy,'  by  any  sense  of  a 

263 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

social  situation."  Her  father  listened  to  this  declara 
tion  as  if  the  precautions  of  her  general  mercy  could 
still,  as  they  betrayed  themselves,  have  surprises  for 
him — to  say  nothing  of  a  charm  of  delicacy  and 
beauty;  he  might  have  been  wishing  to  see  how  far 
she  could  go  and  where  she  would,  all  touchingly 
to  him,  arrive.  But  she  waited  a  little — as  if  made 
nervous,  precisely,  by  feeling  him  depend  too  much 
on  what  she  said.  They  were  avoiding  the  serious, 
standing  off,  anxiously,  from  the  real,  and  they  fell, 
again  and  again,  as  if  to  disguise  their  precaution 
itself,  into  the  tone  of  the  time  that  came  back  to  them 
from  their  other  talk,  when  they  had  shared  together 
this  same  refuge.  "Don't  you  remember,"  she  went 
on,  "how,  when  they  were  here  before,  I  broke  it  to 
you  that  I  wasn't  so  very  sure  we  ourselves  had  the 
thing  itself?" 

He  did  his  best  to  do  so.  "Had,  you  mean  a  so 
cial  situation?" 

"Yes — after  Fanny  Assingham  had  first  broken  it 
to  me  that,  at  the  rate  we  were  going,  we  should 
never  have  one." 

"Which  was  what  put  us  on  Charlotte?"  Oh  yes, 
they  had  had  it  over  quite  often  enough  for  him 
easily  to  remember. 

Maggie  had  another  pause — taking  it  from  him 
that  he  now  could  both  affirm  and  admit  without 
wincing  that  they  had  been,  at  their  critical  moment, 
"put  on"  Charlotte.  It  was  as  if  this  recognition 
had  been  threshed  out  between  them  as  fundamental 
to  the  honest  view  of  their  success.  "Well,"  she  con- 

264 


THE   PRINCESS 

tinued,  "I  recall  how  I  felt,  about  Kitty  and  Dotty, 
that  even  if  we  had  already  then  been  more  'placed,' 
or  whatever  you  may  call  what  we  are  now,  it  still 
wouldn't  have  been  an  excuse  for  wondering  why 
others  couldn't  obligingly  leave  me  more  exalted  by 
having,  themselves,  smaller  ideas.  For  those,"  she 
said,  "were  the  feelings  we  used  to  have." 

"Oh  yes,"  he  responded  philosophically — "I  re 
member  the  feelings  we  used  to  have." 

Maggie  appeared  to  wish  to  plead  for  them  a  little, 
in  tender  retrospect — as  if  they  had  been  also  re 
spectable.  "It  was  bad  enough,  I  thought,  to  have 
no  sympathy  in  your  heart  when  you  had  a  position. 
But  it  was  worse  to  be  sublime  about  it — as  I  was 
so  afraid,  as  I'm  in  fact  still  afraid  of  being — when 
it  wasn't  even  there  to  support  one."  And  she  put 
forth  again  the  earnestness  she  might  have  been  tak 
ing  herself  as  having  outlived;  became  for  it — which 
was  doubtless  too  often  even  now  her  danger — almost 
sententious.  "One  must  always,  whether  or  no,  have 
some  imagination  of  the  states  of  others — of  what 
they  may  feel  deprived  of.  However,"  she  added, 
"Kitty  and  Dotty  couldn't  imagine  we  were  deprived 

of  anything.  And  now,  and  now !"  But  she 

stopped  as  for  indulgence  to  their  wonder  and  envy. 

"And  now  they  see,  still  more,  that  we  can  have 
got  everything,  and  kept  everything,  and  yet  not  be 
proud." 

"No,  we're  not  proud,"  she  answered  after  a  mo 
ment.  "I'm  not  sure  that  we're  quite  proud  enough." 
Yet  she  changed  the  next  instant  that  subject  too. 

265 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

She  could  only  do  so,  however,  by  harking  back — 
as  if  it  had  been  a  fascination.  She  might  have  been 
wishing,  under  this  renewed,  this  still  more  suggestive 
visitation,  to  keep  him  with  her  for  remounting  the 
stream  of  time  and  dipping  again,  for  the  softness 
of  the  water,  into  the  contracted  basin  of  the  past. 
"We  talked  about  it — we  talked  about  it;  you  don't 
remember  so  well  as  I.  You  too  didn't  know — and 
it  was  beautiful  of  you;  like  Kitty  and  Dotty  you  too 
thought  we  had  a  position,  and  were  surprised  when 
/  thought  we  ought  to  have  told  them  we  weren't 
doing  for  them  what  they  supposed.  In  fact,"  Mag 
gie  pursued,  "we're  not  doing  it  now.  We're  not, 
you  see,  really  introducing  them.  I  mean  not  to  the 
people  they  want." 

"Then  what  do  you  call  the  people  with  whom 
they're  now  having  tea?" 

It  made  her  quite  spring  round.  "That's  just  what 
you  asked  me  the  other  time — one  of  the  days  there 
was  somebody.  And  I  told  you  I  didn't  call  anybody 
anything." 

"I  remember — that  such  people,  the  people  we 
made  so  welcome,  didn't  'count';  that  Fanny  Assing- 
ham  knew  they  didn't."  She  had  awakened,  his 
daughter,  the  echo;  and  on  the  bench  there,  as  before, 
he  nodded  his  head  amusedly,  he  kept  nervously 
shaking  his  foot.  "Yes,  they  were  only  good  enough 
— the  people  who  came — for  us.  I  remember,"  he 
said  again:  "that  was  the  way  it  all  happened." 

"That  was  the  way — that  was  the  way.  And  you 
asked  me,"  Maggie  added,  "if  I  didn't  think  we  ought 

266 


THE   PRINCESS 

to  tell  them.  Tell  Mrs.  Ranee,  in  particular,  I  mean, 
that  we  had  been  entertaining  her  up  to  then  under 
false  pretences." 

"Precisely — but  you  said  she  wouldn't  have  under 
stood." 

"To  which  you  replied  that  in  that  case  you  were 
like  her.  You  didn't  understand." 

"No,  no — but  I  remember  how,  about  our  having, 
in  our  benighted  innocence,  no  position,  you  quite 
crushed  me  with  your  explanation." 

"Well  then,"  said  Maggie  with  every  appearance 
of  delight,  "I'll  crush  you  again.  I  told  you  that  you 
by  yourself  had  one — there  was  no  doubt  of  that. 
You  were  different  from  me — you  had  the  same  one 
you  always  had." 

"And  then  I  asked  you,"  her  father  concurred,  "why 
in  that  case  you  hadn't  the  same." 

"Then  indeed  you  did."  He  had  brought  her  face 
round  to  him  before,  and  this  held  it,  covering  him 
with  its  kindled  brightness,  the  result  of  the  attested 
truth  of  their  being  able  thus,  in  talk,  to  live  again 
together.  "What  I  replied  was  that  I  had  lost  my 
position  by  my  marriage.  That  one — I  know  how  I 
saw  it — would  never  come  back.  I  had  done  some 
thing  to  it — I  didn't  quite  know  what;  given  it  away, 
somehow,  and  yet  not,  as  then  appeared,  really  got 
my  return.  I  had  been  assured — always  by  dear 
Fanny — that  I  could  get  it,  only  I  must  wake  up. 
So  I  was  trying,  you  see,  to  wake  up — trying  very 
hard," 

"Yes— and  to  a  certain  extent  you  succeeded;  as 
267 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

also  in  waking  me.  But  you  made  much,"  he  said, 
"of  your  difficulty."  To  which  he  added:  "It's  the 
only  case  I  remember,  Mag,  of  you  ever  making 
anything  of  a  difficulty." 

She  kept  her  eyes  on  him  a  moment.  "That  I  was 
so  happy  as  I  was?" 

"That  you  were  so  happy  as  you  were." 

"Well,  you  admitted" — Maggie  kept  it  up — "that 
that  was  a  good  difficulty.  You  confessed  that  our 
life  did  seem  to  be  beautiful." 

He  thought  a  moment.  "Yes — I  may  very  well 
have  confessed  it,  for  so  it  did  seem  to  me."  But  he 
guarded  himself  with  his  dim,  his  easier  smile.  "What 
do  you  want  to  put  on  me  now?" 

"Only  that  we  used  to  wonder — that  we  were  won 
dering  then — if  our  life  wasn't  perhaps  a  little  selfish." 

This  also  for  a  time,  much  at  his  leisure,  Adam 
Verver  retrospectively  fixed.  "Because  Fanny  As- 
singham  thought  so?" 

"Oh  no;  she  never  thought,  she  couldn't  think,  if 
she  would,  anything  of  that  sort.  She  only  thinks 
people  are  sometimes  fools,"  Maggie  developed;  "she 
doesn't  seem  to  think  so  much  about  their  being 
wrong — wrong,  that  is,  in  the  sense  of  being  wicked. 
She  doesn't,"  the  Princess  further  adventured, 
"quite  so  much  mind  their  being  wicked." 

"I  see — I  see."  And  yet  it  might  have  been  for 
his  daughter  that  he  didn't  so  very  vividly  see.  "Then 
she  only  thought  us  fools?" 

"Oh  no — I  don't  say  that.  I'm  speaking  of  our 
being  selfish." 

268 


THE  PRINCESS 

"And  that  comes  under  the  head  of  the  wickedness 
Fanny  condones?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  say  she  condones /"  A  scruple  in 

Maggie  raised  its  crest.  "Besides,  I'm  speaking  of 
what  was." 

Her  father  showed,  however,  after  a  little,  that  he 
had  not  been  reached  by  this  discrimination;  his 
thoughts  were  resting  for  the  moment  where  they 
had  settled.  "Look  here,  Mag,"  he  said  reflectively 
—"I  ain't  selfish.  I'll  be  blowed  if  I'm  selfish." 

Well,  Maggie,  if  he  would  talk  of  that,  could  also 
pronounce.  "Then,  father,  /  am." 

"Oh  shucks!"  said  Adam  Verver,  to  whom  the  ver 
nacular,  in  moments  of  deepest  sincerity,  could  thus 
come  back.  "I'll  believe  it,"  he  presently  added, 
"when  Amerigo  complains  of  you." 

"Ah,  it's  just  he  who's  my  selfishness.  I'm  selfish, 
so  to  speak,  for  him.  I  mean,"  she  continued,  "that 
he's  my  motive — in  everything." 

Well,  her  father  could,  from  experience,  fancy  what 
she  meant.  "But  hasn't  a  girl  a  right  to  be  selfish 
about  her  husband?" 

"What  I  don't  mean,"  she  observed  without  an 
swering,  "is  that  I'm  jealous  of  him.  But  that's  his 
merit — it's  not  mine." 

Her  father  again  seemed  amused  at  her.  "You 
could  be — otherwise?" 

"Oh,  how  can  I  talk,"  she  asked,  "of  'otherwise'? 
It  isn't,  luckily  for  me,  otherwise.  If  everything  were 
different" — she  further  presented  her  thought — "of 
course  everything  would  be."  And  then  again,  as -if 

269 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

that  were  but  half:  "My  idea  is  this,  that  when  you 
only  love  a  little  you're  naturally  not  jealous — or  are 
only  jealous  also  a  little,  so  that  it  doesn't  matter. 
But  when  you  love  in  a  deeper  and  intenser  way,  then 
you  are,  in  the  same  proportion,  jealous;  your  jeal 
ousy  has  intensity  and,  no  doubt,  ferocity.  When, 
however,  you  love  in  the  most  abysmal  and  unutter 
able  way  of  all — why  then  you're  beyond  everything, 
and  nothing  can  pull  you  down." 

Mr.  Verver  listened  as  if  he  had  nothing,  on  these 
high  lines,  to  oppose.  "And  that's  the  way  you  love?" 

For  a  minute  she  failed  to  speak,  but  at  last  she 
answered:  "It  wasn't  to  talk  about  that.  I  do  feel, 
however,  beyond  everything — and  as  a  consequence 
of  that,  I  dare  say,"  she  added  with  a  turn  to  gaiety, 
"seem  often  not  to  know  quite  where  I  am." 

The  mere  fine  pulse  of  passion  in  it,  the  suggestion 
as  of  a  creature  consciously  floating  and  shining  in 
a  warm  summer  sea,  some  element  of  dazzling 
sapphire  and  silver,  a  creature  cradled  upon  depths, 
buoyant  among  dangers,  in  which  fear  or  folly,  or 
sinking  otherwise  than  in  play,  was  impossible — 
something  of  all  this  might  have  been  making  once 
more  present  to  him,  with  his  discreet,  his  half  shy 
assent  to  it,  her  probable  enjoyment  of  a  rapture 
that  he,  in  his  day,  had  presumably  convinced  no  great 
number  of  persons  either  of  his  giving  or  of  his  re 
ceiving.  He  sat  awhile  as  if  he  knew  himself  hushed, 
almost  admonished,  and  not  for  the  first  time;  yet 
it  was  an  effect  that  might  have  brought  before  him 
rather  what  she  had  gained  than  what  he  had  missed. 

270 


THE  PRINCESS 

Besides,  who  but  himself  really  knew  what  he,  after 
all,  hadn't,  or  even  had,  gained?  The  beauty  of  her 
condition  was  keeping  him,  at  any  rate,  as  he  might 
feel,  in  sight  of  the  sea,  where,  though  his  personal 
dips  were  over,  the  whole  thing  could  shine  at  him, 
and  the  air  and  the  plash  and  the  play  become  for 
him  too  a  sensation.  That  couldn't  be  fixed  upon 
him  as  missing;  since  if  it  wasn't  personally  floating, 
if  it  wasn't  even  sitting  in  the  sand,  it  could  yet  pass 
very  well  for  breathing  the  bliss,  in  a  communicated 
irresistible  way — for  tasting  the  balm.  It  could 
pass,  further,  for  knowing — for  knowing  that  without 
him  nothing  might  have  been:  which  would  have 
been  missing  least  of  all.  "I  guess  I've  never  been 
jealous,"  he  finally  remarked.  And  it  said  more  to 
her,  he  had  occasion  next  to  perceive,  than  he  was 
intending;  for  it  made  her,  as  by  the  pressure  of  a 
spring,  give  him  a  look  that  seemed  to  tell  of  things 
she  couldn't  speak. 

But  she  at  last  tried  for  one  of  them.  "Oh,  it's 
you,  father,  who  are  what  I  call  beyond  everything. 
Nothing  can  pull  you  down." 

He  returned  the  look  as  with  the  sociability  of 
their  easy  communion,  though  inevitably  throwing 
in  this  time  a  shade  of  solemnity.  He  might  have 
been  seeing  things  to  say,  and  others,  whether  of  a 
type  presumptuous  or  not,  doubtless  better  kept 
back.  So  he  settled  on  the  merely  obvious.  "Well 
then,  we  make  a  pair.  We're  all  right." 

"Oh,  we're  all  right!"  A  declaration  launched  not 
only  with  all  her  discriminating  emphasis,  but  con- 

271 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

firmed  by  her  rising  with  decision  and  standing  there 
as  if  the  object  of  their  small  excursion  required  ac 
cordingly  no  further  pursuit.  At  this  juncture, 
however — with  the  act  of  their  crossing  the  bar,  to 
get,  as  might  be,  into  port — there  occurred  the  only 
approach  to  a  betrayal  of  their  having  had  to  beat 
against  the  wind.  Her  father  kept  his  place,  and  it 
was  as  if  she  had  got  over  first  and  were  pausing 
for  her  consort  to  follow.  If  they  were  all  right, 
they  were  all  right;  yet  he  seemed  to  hesitate  and 
wait  for  some  word  beyond.  His  eyes  met  her  own, 
suggestively,  and  it  was  only  after  she  had  contented 
herself  with  simply  smiling  at  him,  smiling  ever  so 
fixedly,  that  he  spoke,  for  the  remaining  importance 
of  it,  from  the  bench;  where  he  leaned  back,  raising 
his  face  to  her,  his  legs  thrust  out  a  trifle  wearily  and 
his  hands  grasping  either  side  of  the  seat.  They  had 
beaten  against  the  wind,  and  she  was  still  fresh;  they 
had  beaten  against  the  wind,  and  he,  as  at  the  best 
the  more  battered  vessel,  perhaps  just  vaguely 
drooped.  But  the  effect  of  their  silence  was  that  she 
appeared  to  beckon  him  on,  and  he  might  have  been 
fairly  alongside  of  her  when,  at  the  end  of  another 
minute,  he  found  their  word.  "The  only  thing  is 
that,  as  for  ever  putting  up  again  with  your  pre 
tending  that  you're  selfish !" 

At  this  she  helped  him  out  with  it.     "You  won't 
take  it  from  me?" 

"I  won't  take  it  from  you." 

"Well,  of  course  you  won't,  for  that's  your  way. 
It  doesn't  matter,  and  it  only  proves !     But  it 


THE  PRINCESS 

doesn't  matter,  either,  what  it  proves.  I'm  at  this 
very  moment,"  she  declared,  "frozen  stiff  with  self 
ishness." 

He  faced  her  awhile  longer  in  the  same  way;  it 
was,  strangely,  as  if,  by  this  sudden  arrest,  by  their 
having,  in  their  acceptance  of  the  unsaid,  or  at  least 
their  reference  to  it,  practically  given  up  pretending 
— it  was  as  if  they  were  "in"  for  it,  for  something  they 
had  been  ineffably  avoiding,  but  the  dread  of  which 
was  itself,  in  a  manner,  a  seduction,  just  as  any  con 
fession  of  the  dread  was  by  so  much  an  allusion. 
Then  she  seemed  to  see  him  let  himself  go.  "When 
a  person's  of  the  nature  you  speak  of  there  are  always 
other  persons  to  suffer.  But  you've  just  been  de 
scribing  to  me  what  you'd  take,  if  you  had  once  a 
good  chance,  from  your  husband." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  talking  about  my  husband!" 
"Then  whom  are  you  talking  about?" 
Both  the  retort  and  the  rejoinder  had  come  quicker 
than  anything  previously  exchanged,  and  they  were 
followed,  on  Maggie's  part,  by  a  momentary  drop. 
But  she  was  not  to  fall  away,  and  while  her  com 
panion  kept  his  eyes  on  her,  while  she  wondered  if 
he  weren't  expecting  her  to  name  his  wife  then,  with 
high  hypocrisy,  as  paying  for  his  daughter's  bliss, 
she  produced  something  that  she  felt  to  be  much 
better.  "I'm  talking  about  you." 

"Do  you  mean  I've  been  your  victim?" 
"Of  course  you've  been  my  victim.     What  have 
you  done,  ever  done,  that  hasn't  been  for  me?" 

"Many  things;  more  than  I  can  tell  you — things 
VOL.  II.— 18  273 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

you've  only  to  think  of  for  yourself.  What  do  you 
make  of  all  that  I've  done  for  myself?" 

"'Yourself? "  She  brightened  out  with  de 
rision. 

"What  do  you  make  of  what  I've  done  for  Amer 
ican  City?" 

It  took  her  but  a  moment  to  say.  "I'm  not  talking 
of  you  as  a  public  character — I'm  talking  of  you  on 
your  personal  side." 

"Well,  American  City — if  'personalities'  can  do  it 
— has  given  me  a  pretty  personal  side.  What  do  you 
make,"  he  went  on,  "of  what  I've  done  for  my  rep 
utation?" 

"Your  reputation  there?  You've  given  it  up  to 
them,  the  awful  people,  for  less  than  nothing;  you've 
given  it  up  to  them  to  tear  to  pieces,  to  make  their 
horrible  vulgar  jokes  against  you  with." 

"Ah,  my  dear,  I  don't  care  for  their  horrible  vulgar 
jokes,"  Adam  Verver  almost  artlessly  urged. 

"Then  there,  exactly,  you  are!"  she  triumphed. 
"Everything  that  touches  you,  everything  that  sur 
rounds  you,  goes  on — by  your  splendid  indiffer 
ence  and  your  incredible  permission — at  your  ex 
pense." 

Just  as  he  had  been  sitting  he  looked  at  her  an 
instant  longer;  then  he  slowly  rose,  while  his  hands 
stole  into  his  pockets,  and  stood  there  before  her. 
"Of  course,  my  dear,  you  go  on  at  my  expense:  it 
has  never  been  my  idea,"  he  smiled,  "that  you  should 
work  for  your  living.  I  wouldn't  have  liked  to  see  it." 
With  which,  for  a  little  again,  they  remained  face  to 

274 


THE  PRINCESS 

face.  "Say  therefore  I  have  had  the  feelings  of  a 
father.  How  have  they  made  me  a  victim?" 

"Because  I  sacrifice  you." 

"But  to  what  in  the  world?" 

At  this  it  hung  before  her  that  she  should  have 
had  as  never  yet  her  opportunity  to  say,  and  it  held 
her  for  a  minute  as  in  a  vise,  her  impression  of  his 
now,  with  his  strained  smile,  which  touched  her  to 
deepest  depths,  sounding  her  in  his  secret  unrest. 
This  was  the  moment,  in  the  whole  process  of  their 
mutual  vigilance,  in  which  it  decidedly  most  hung 
by  a  hair  that  their  thin  wall  might  be  pierced  by  the 
lightest  wrong  touch.  It  shook  between  them,  this 
transparency,  with  their  very  breath;  it  was  an  ex 
quisite  tissue,  but  stretched  on  a  frame,  and  would 
give  way  the  next  instant  if  either  so  much  as 
breathed  too  hard.  She  held  her  breath,  for  she  knew 
by  his  eyes,  the  light  at  the  heart  of  which  he  couldn't 
blind,  that  he  was,  by  his  intention,  making  sure — 
sure  whether  or  no  her  certainty  was  like  his.  The 
intensity  of  his  dependence  on  it  at  that  moment — 
this  itself  was  what  absolutely  convinced  her  so  that, 
as  if  perched  up  before  him  on  her  vertiginous  point 
and  in  the  very  glare  of  his  observation,  she  balanced 
for  thirty  seconds,  she  almost  rocked:  she  might  have 
been  for  the  time,  in  all  her  conscious  person,  the 
very  form  of  the  equilibrium  they  were,  in  their  dif 
ferent  ways,  equally  trying  to  save.  And  they  were 
saving  it — yes,  they  were,  or  at  least  she  was:  that 
was  still  the  workable  issue,  she  could  say,  as  she 
felt  her  dizziness  drop.  She  held  herself  hard;  the 

275 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

thing  was  to  be  done,  once  for  all,  by  her  acting, 
now,  where  she  stood.  So  much  was  crowded  into 
so  short  a  space  that  she  knew  already  she  was  keep 
ing  her  head.  She  had  kept  it  by  the  warning  of  his 
eyes;  she  shouldn't  lose  it  again;  she  knew  how  and 
why,  and  if  she  had  turned  cold  this  was  precisely 
what  helped  her.  He  had  said  to  himself  "She'll 
break  down  and  name  Amerigo;  she'll  say  it's  to  him 
she's  sacrificing  me;  and  it's  by  what  that  will  give 
me — with  so  many  other  things  too — that  my  sus 
picion  will  be  clinched."  He  was  watching  her  lips, 
spying  for  the  symptoms  of  the  sound;  whereby  these 
symptoms  had  only  to  fail  and  he  would  have  got 
nothing  that  she  didn't  measure  out  to  him  as  she 
gave  it.  She  had  presently  in  fact  so  recovered 
herself  that  she  seemed  to  know  she  could  more 
easily  have  made  him  name  his  wife  than  he  have 
made  her  name  her  husband.  It  was  there  before 
her  that  if  she  should  so  much  as  force  him  just  not 
consciously  to  avoid  saying  "Charlotte,  Charlotte" 
he  would  have  given  himself  away.  But  to  be  sure 
of  this  was  enough  for  her,  and  she  saw  more  clearly 
with  each  lapsing  instant  what  they  were  both  doing. 
He  was  doing  what  he  had  steadily  been  coming  to; 
he  was  practically  offering  himself,  pressing  himself 
upon  her,  as  a  sacrifice — he  had  read  his  way  so  into 
her  best  possibility;  and  where  had  she  already,  for 
weeks  and  days  past,  planted  her  feet  if  not  on  her 
acceptance  of  the  offer?  Cold  indeed,  colder  and 
colder  she  turned,  as  she  felt  herself  suffer  this  close 
personal  vision  of  his  attitude  still  not  to  make  her 

276 


THE   PRINCESS 

weaken.  That  was  her  very  certitude,  the  intensity 
of  his  pressure;  for  if  something  dreadful  hadn't  hap 
pened  there  wouldn't,  for  either  of  them,  be  these 
dreadful  things  to  do.  She  had  meanwhile,  as  well, 
the  immense  advantage  that  she  could  have  named 
Charlotte  without  exposing  herself — as,  for  that  mat 
ter,  she  was  the  next  minute  showing  him. 

"Why,  I  sacrifice  you,  simply,  to  everything  and 
to  every  one.  I  take  the  consequences  of  your  mar 
riage  as  perfectly  natural." 

He  threw  back  his  head  a  little,  settling  with  one 
hand  his  eyeglass.  "What  do  you  call,  my  dear,  the 
consequences?" 

"Your  life  as  your  marriage  has  made  it." 

"Well,  hasn't  it  made  it  exactly  what  we  wanted?" 

She  just  hesitated,  then  felt  herself  steady — oh, 
beyond  what  she  had  dreamed.  "Exactly  what  / 
wanted — yes." 

His  eyes,  through  his  straightened  glasses,  were 
still  on  hers,  and  he  might,  with  his  intenser  fixed 
smile,  have  been  knowing  she  was,  for  herself,  rightly 
inspired.  "What  do  you  make  then  of  what  I 
wanted?" 

"I  don't  make  anything,  any  more  than  of  what 
you've  got.  That's  exactly  the  point.  I  don't  put 
myself  out  to  do  so — I  never  have;  I  take  from 
you  all  I  can  get,  all  you've  provided  for  me,  and  I 
leave  you  to  make  of  your  own  side  of  the  matter 
what  you  can.  There  you  are — the  rest  is  your  own 
affair.  I  don't  even  pretend  to  concern  myself !" 

"To  concern  yourself ?"  He  watched  her  as 

277 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

she  faintly  faltered,  looking  about  her  now  so  as  not 
to  keep  always  meeting  his  face. 

"With  what  may  have  really  become  of  you.  It's 
as  if  we  had  agreed  from  the  first  not  to  go  into  that 
— such  an  arrangement  being  of  course  charming  for 
me.  You  can't  say,  you  know,  that  I  haven't  stuck 
to  it." 

He  didn't  say  so  then — even  with  the  opportunity 
given  him  of  her  stopping  once  more  to  catch  her 
breath.  He  said  instead:  "Oh,  my  dear — oh,  oh!" 

But  it  made  no  difference,  know  as  she  might  what 
a  past — still  so  recent  and  yet  so  distant — it  alluded 
to;  she  repeated  her  denial,  warning  him  off,  on  her 
side,  from  spoiling  the  truth  of  her  contention.  "I 
never  went  into  anything,  and  you  see  I  don't;  I've 
continued  to  adore  you — but  what's  that,  from  a 
decent  daughter  to  such  a  father?  what  but  a  ques 
tion  of  convenient  arrangement,  our  having  two 
houses,  three  houses,  instead  of  one  (you  would  have 
arranged  for  fifty  if  I  had  wished!)  and  my  making 
it  easy  for  you  to  see  the  child?  You  don't  claim, 
I  suppose,  that  my  natural  course,  once  you  had  set 
up  for  yourself,  would  have  been  to  ship  you  back 
to  American  City?" 

These  were  direct  inquiries,  they  quite  rang  out, 
in  the  soft,  wooded  air;  so  that  Adam  Verver,  for 
a  minute,  appeared  to  meet  them  with  reflection. 
She  saw  reflection,  however,  quickly  enough  show 
him  what  to  do  with  them.  "Do  you  know,  Mag, 
what  you  make  me  wish  when  you  talk  that  way?" 
And  he  waited  again,  while  she  further  got  from  him 

278 


THE  PRINCESS 

the  sense  of  something  that  had  been  behind,  deeply 
in  the  shade,  coming  cautiously  to  the  front  and  just 
feeling  its  way  before  presenting  itself.  "You  reg 
ularly  make  me  wish  that  I  had  shipped  back  to 

American  City.  When  you  go  on  as  you  do " 

But  he  really  had  to  hold  himself  to  say  it. 

"Well,  when  I  go  on ?" 

"Why,  you  make  me  quite  want  to  ship  back 
myself.  You  make  me  quite  feel  as  if  American  City 
would  be  the  best  place  for  us." 

It  made  her  all  too  finely  vibrate.    "For  'us' ?" 

"For  me  and  Charlotte.  Do  you  know  that  if  we 
should  ship,  it  would  serve  you  quite  right?"  With 
which  he  smiled — oh  he  smiled!  "And  if  you  say 
much  more  we  will  ship." 

Ah,  then  it  was  that  the  cup  of  her  conviction, 
full  to  the  brim,  overflowed  at  a  touch!  There  was 
his  idea,  the  clearness  of  which  for  an  instant  almost 
dazzled  her.  It  was  a  blur  of  light,  in  the  midst  of 
which  she  saw  Charlotte  like  some  object  marked, 
by  contrast,  in  blackness,  saw  her  waver  in  the  field 
of  vision,  saw  her  removed,  transported,  doomed. 
And  he  had  named  Charlotte,  named  her  again,  and 
she  had  made  him — which  was  all  she  had  needed 
more:  it  was  as  if  she  had  held  a  blank  letter  to  the 
fire  and  the  writing  had  come  out  still  larger  than 
she  hoped.  The  recognition  of  it  took  her  some 
seconds,  but  she  might  when  she  spoke  have  been 
folding  up  these  precious  lines  and  restoring  them 
to  her  pocket.  "Well,  I  shall  be  as  much  as  ever 
then  the  cause  of  what  you  do.  I  haven't  the  least 

279 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

doubt  of  your  being  up  to  that  if  you  should  think 
I  might  get  anything  out  of  it;  even  the  little 
pleasure,"  she  laughed,  "of  having  said,  as  you  call 
it,  'more.'  Let  my  enjoyment  of  this  therefore,  at 
any  price,  continue  to  represent  for  you  what  /  call 
sacrificing  you." 

She  had  drawn  a  long  breath;  she  had  made  him 
do  it  all  for  her,  and  had  lighted  the  way  to  it 
without  his  naming  her  husband.  That  silence  had 
been  as  distinct  as  the  sharp,  the  inevitable  sound, 
and  something  now,  in  him,  followed  it  up,  a  sudden 
air  as  of  confessing  at  last  fully  to  where  she  was  and 
of  begging  the  particular  question.  "Don't  you 
think  then  I  can  take  care  of  myself?" 

"Ah,  it's  exactly  what  I've  gone  upon.  If  it  wasn't 
for  that !" 

But  she  broke  off,  and  they  remained  only  another 
moment  face  to  face.  "I'll  let  you  know,  my  dear, 
the  day  7  feel  you've  begun  to  sacrifice  me." 

"  'Begun'?"  she  extravagantly  echoed. 

"Well,  it  will  be,  for  me,  the  day  you've  ceased  to 
believe  in  me." 

With  which,  his  glasses  still  fixed  on  her,  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  his  hat  pushed  back,  his  legs  a  little 
apart,  he  seemed  to  plant  or  to  square  himself  for  a 
kind  of  assurance  it  had  occurred  to  him  he  might  as 
well  treat  her  to,  in  default  of  other  things,  before  they 
changed  their  subject.  It  had  the  effect,  for  her,  of 
a  reminder — a  reminder  of  all  he  was,  of  all  he  had 
done,  of  all,  above  and  beyond  his  being  her  perfect 
little  father,  she  might  take  him  as  representing,  take 

280 


THE  PRINCESS 

him  as  having,  quite  eminently,  in  the  eyes  of  two 
hemispheres,  been  capable  of,  and  as  therefore  wish 
ing,  not — was  it? — illegitimately,  to  call  her  attention 
to.  The  "successful,"  beneficent  person,  the  beautiful, 
bountiful,  original,  dauntlessly  wilful  great  citizen,  the 
consummate  collector  and  infallible  high  authority 
he  had  been  and  still  was — these  things  struck  her, 
on  the  spot,  as  making  up  for  him,  in  a  wonderful 
way,  a  character  she  must  take  into  account  in 
dealing  with  him  either  for  pity  or  for  envy.  He 
positively,  under  the  impression,  seemed  to  loom 
larger  than  life  for  her,  so  that  she  saw  him  during 
these  moments  in  a  light  of  recognition  which  had 
had  its  brightness  for  her  at  many  an  hour  of  the  past, 
but  which  had  never  been  so  intense  and  so  almost 
admonitory.  His  very  quietness  was  part  of  it  now, 
as  always  part  of  everything,  of  his  success,  his  ori 
ginality,  his  modesty,  his  exquisite  public  perversity, 
his  inscrutable,  incalculable  energy;  and  this  quality 
perhaps  it  might  be — all  the  more  too  as  the  result, 
for  the  present  occasion,  of  an  admirable,  traceable 
effort — that  placed  him  in  her  eyes  as  no  precious 
work  of  art  probably  had  ever  been  placed  in  his 
own.  There  was  a  long  moment,  absolutely,  during 
which  her  impression  rose  and  rose,  even  as  that  of 
the  typical  charmed  gazer,  in  the  still  museum, 
before  the  named  and  dated  object,  the  pride  of  the 
catalogue,  that  time  has  polished  and  consecrated. 
Extraordinary,  in  particular,  was  the  number  of  the 
different  ways  in  which  he  thus  affected  her  as  show 
ing.  He  was  strong — that  was  the  great  thing.  He 

281 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

was  sure — sure  for  himself,  always,  whatever  his  idea: 
the  expression  of  that  in  him  had  somehow  never 
appeared  more  identical  with  his  proved  taste  for  the 
rare  and  the  true.  But  what  stood  out  beyond  every 
thing  was  that  he  was  always,  marvellously,  young — 
which  couldn't  but  crown,  at  this  juncture,  his  whole 
appeal  to  her  imagination.  Before  she  knew  it  she 
was  lifted  aloft  by  the  consciousness  that  he  was 
simply  a  great  and  deep  and  high  little  man,  and 
that  to  love  him  with  tenderness  was  not  to  be  dis 
tinguished,  a  whit,  from  loving  him  with  pride.  It. 
came  to  her,  all  strangely,  as  a  sudden,  an  immense 
relief.  The  sense  that  he  wasn't  a  failure,  and  could 
never  be,  purged  their  predicament  of  every  mean 
ness — made  it  as  if  they  had  really  emerged,  in  their 
transmuted  union,  to  smile  almost  without  pain.  It 
was  like  a  new  confidence,  and  after  another  instant 
she  knew  even  still  better  why.  Wasn't  it  because 
now,  also,  on  his  side,  he  was  thinking  of  her  as  his 
daughter,  was  trying  her,  during  these  mute  seconds, 
as  the  child  of  his  blood?  Oh  then,  if  she  wasn't  with 
her  little  conscious  passion,  the  child  of  any  weak 
ness,  what  was  she  but  strong  enough  too?  It 
swelled  in  her,  fairly;  it  raised  her  higher,  higher:  she 
wasn't  in  that  case  a  failure  either — hadn't  been,  but 
the  contrary;  his  strength  was  her  strength,  her  pride 
was  his,  and  they  were  decent  and  competent  to 
gether.  This  was  all  in  the  answer  she  finally  made 
him. 

"I  believe  in  you  more  than  any  one." 

"Than  any  one  at  all?" 

282 


THE   PRINCESS 

She  hesitated,  for  all  it  might  mean;  but  there  was 
— oh  a  thousand  times! — no  doubt  of  it.  "Than 
any  one  at  all."  She  kept  nothing  of  it  back  now, 
met  his  eyes  over  it,  let  him  have  the  whole  of  it; 
after  which  she  went  on:  "And  that's  the  way,  I 
think,  you  believe  in  me." 

He  looked  at  her  a  minute  longer,  but  his  tone  at 
last  was  right.  "About  the  way — yes." 

"Well  then ?"  She  spoke  as  for  the  end  and 

for  other  matters — for  anything,  everything,  else 
there  might  be.  They  would  never  return  to  it. 

"Well  then !"  His  hands  came  out,  and  while 

her  own  took  them  he  drew  her  to  his  breast  and  held 
her.  He  held  her  hard  and  kept  her  long,  and  she 
let  herself  go;  but  it  was  an  embrace  that,  august  and 
almost  stern,  produced,  for  all  its  intimacy,  no  revul 
sion  and  broke  into  no  inconsequence  of  tears. 


283 


XXXVIII 

MAGGIE  was  to  feel,  after  this  passage,  how  they  had 
both  been  helped  through  it  by  the  influence  of  that 
accident  of  her  having  been  caught,  a  few  nights 
before,  in  the  familiar  embrace  of  her  father's  wife. 
His  return  to  the  saloon  had  chanced  to  coincide  ex 
actly  with  this  demonstration,  missed  moreover  neither 
by  her  husband  nor  by  the  Assinghams,  who,  their 
card-party  suspended,  had  quitted  the  billiard-room 
with  him.  She  had  been  conscious  enough  at  the  time 
of  what  such  an  impression,  received  by  the  others, 
might,  in  that  extended  state,  do  for  her  case;  and 
none  the  less  that,  as  no  one  had  appeared  to  wish  to 
be  the  first  to  make  a  remark  about  it,  it  had  taken  on 
perceptibly  the  special  shade  of  consecration  conferred 
by  unanimities  of  silence.  The  effect,  she  might  have 
considered,  had  been  almost  awkward — the  prompti 
tude  of  her  separation  from  Charlotte,  as  if  they  had 
been  discovered  in  some  absurdity,  on  her  becoming 
aware  of  spectators.  The  spectators,  on  the  other 
hand — that  was  the  appearance — mightn't  have  sup 
posed  them,  in  the  existing  relation,  addicted  to  mutual 
endearments;  and  yet,  hesitating  with  a  fine  scruple 
between  sympathy  and  hilarity,  must  have  felt  that 
almost  any  spoken  or  laughed  comment  could  be  kept 
from  sounding  vulgar  only  by  sounding,  beyond  any 

284 


THE   PRINCESS 

permitted  measure,  intelligent.  They  had  evidently 
looked,  the  two  young  wives,  like  a  pair  of  women 
"making  up"  effusively,  as  women  were  supposed  to 
do,  especially  when  approved  fools,  after  a  broil;  but 
taking  note  of  the  reconciliation  would  imply,  on  her 
father's  part,  on  Amerigo's,  and  on  Fanny  Assing- 
ham's,  some  proportionate  vision  of  the  grounds  of 
their  difference.  There  had  been  something,  there  had 
been  but  too  much,  in  the  incident,  for  each  observer; 
yet  there  was  nothing  any  one  could  have  said  without 
seeming  essentially  to  say :  "See,  see,  the  dear  things 
— their  quarrel's  blissfully  over!"  "Our  quarrel? 
What  quarrel  ?"  the  dear  things  themselves  would  nec 
essarily,  in  that  case,  have  demanded ;  and  the  wits  of 
the  others  would  thus  have  been  called  upon  for  some 
agility  of  exercise.  No  one  had  been  equal  to  the  flight 
of  producing,  off-hand,  a  fictive  reason  for  any  es 
trangement — to  take,  that  is,  the  place  of  the  true, 
which  had  so  long,  for  the  finer  sensibility,  pervaded 
the  air;  and  every  one,  accordingly,  not  to  be  incon 
veniently  challenged,  was  pretending,  immediately 
after,  to  have  remarked  nothing  that  any  one  else 
hadn't. 

Maggie's  own  measure  had  remained,  all  the  same, 
full  of  the  reflection  caught  from  the  total  inference ; 
which  had  acted,  virtually,  by  enabling  every  one  pres 
ent — and  oh  Charlotte  not  least! — to  draw  a  long 
breath.  The  message  of  the  little  scene  had  been  dif 
ferent  for  each,  but  it  had  been  this,  markedly,  all 
round,  that  it  reinforced — reinforced  even  immensely 
— the  general  effort,  carried  on  from  week  to  week  and 

285 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

of  late  distinctly  more  successful,  to  look  and  talk  and 
move  as  if  nothing  in  life  were  the  matter.  Su 
premely,  however,  while  this  glass  was  held  up  to  her, 
had  Maggie's  sense  turned  to  the  quality  of  the  suc 
cess  constituted,  on  the  spot,  for  Charlotte.  Most  of 
all,  if  she  was  guessing  how  her  father  must  have 
secretly  started,  how  her  husband  must  have  secretly 
wondered,  how  Fanny  Assingham  must  have  secretly, 
in  a  flash,  seen  daylight  for  herself — most  of  all  had 
she  tasted,  by  communication,  of  the  high  profit  in 
volved  for  her  companion.  She  felt,  in  all  her  pulses, 
Charlotte  feel  it,  and  how  publicity  had  been  required, 
absolutely,  to  crown  her  own  abasement.  It  was  the 
added  touch,  and  now  nothing  was  wanting — which, 
to  do  her  stepmother  justice,  Mrs.  Verver  had  appeared 
but  to  desire,  from  that  evening,  to  show,  with  the  last 
vividness,  that  she  recognised.  Maggie  lived  over 
again  the  minutes  in  question — had  found  herself  re 
peatedly  doing  so;  to  the  degree  that  the  whole  even 
ing  hung  together,  to  her  aftersense,  as  a  thing  ap 
pointed  by  sonie  occult  power  that  had  dealt  with  her, 
that  had  for  instance  animated  the  four  with  just  the 
right  restlessness  too,  had  decreed  and  directed  and 
exactly  timed  it  in  them,  making  their  game  of  bridge 
— however  abysmal  a  face  it  had  worn  for  her — give 
way,  precisely,  to  their  common  unavowed  impulse  to 
find  out,  to  emulate  Charlotte's  impatience ;  a  pre-occu- 
pation,  this  latter,  attached  detectedly  to  the  member 
of  the  party  who  was  roaming  in  her  queerness  and 
was,  for  all  their  simulated  blindness,  not  roaming 
unnoted. 

286 


THE   PRINCESS 

If  Mrs.  Verver  meanwhile,  then,  had  struck  her  as 
determined  in  a  certain  direction  by  the  last  felicity 
into  which  that  night  had  flowered,  our  young  woman 
was  yet  not  to  fail  of  appreciating  the  truth  that  she 
had  not  been  put  at  ease,  after  all,  with  absolute  per 
manence.  Maggie  had  seen  her,  unmistakably,  desire 
to  rise  to  the  occasion  and  be  magnificent — seen  her 
decide  that  the  right  way  for  this  would  be  to  prove 
that  the  reassurance  she  had  extorted  there,  under  the 
high,  cool  lustre  of  the  saloon,  a  twinkle  of  crystal  and 
silver,  had  not  only  poured  oil  upon  the  troubled  wa 
ters  of  their  question,  but  had  fairly  drenched  their 
whole  intercourse  with  that  lubricant.  She  had  ex 
ceeded  the  limit  of  discretion  in  this  insistence  on  her 
capacity  to  repay  in  proportion  a  service  she  acknowl 
edged  as  handsome.  "Why  handsome?"  Maggie  would 
have  been  free  to  ask ;  since  if  she  had  been  veracious 
the  service  assuredly  would  not  have  been  huge.  It 
would  in  that  case  have  come  up  vividly,  and  for  each 
of  them  alike,  that  the  truth,  on  the  Princess's  lips, 
presented  no  difficulty.  If  the  latter's  mood,  in  fact, 
could  have  turned  itself  at  all  to  private  gaiety  it  might 
have  failed  to  resist  the  diversion  of  seeing  so  clever 
a  creature  so  beguiled.  Charlotte's  theory  of  a  gen 
erous  manner  was  manifestly  to  express  that  her  step 
daughter's  word,  wiping  out,  as  she  might  have  said, 
everything,  had  restored  them  to  the  serenity  of  a  re 
lation  without  a  cloud.  It  had  been,  in  short,  in  this 
light,  ideally  conclusive,  so  that  no  ghost  of  anything  it 
referred  to  could  ever  walk  again.  What  was  the 
ecstasy  of  that,  however,  but  in  itself  a  trifle  compro- 

287 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

mising? — as  truly,  within  the  week,  Maggie  had  occa 
sion  to  suspect  her  friend  of  beginning,  and  rather 
abruptly,  to  remember.  Convinced  as  she  was  of  the 
example  already  given  her  by  her  husband,  and  in  re 
lation  to  which  her  profession  of  trust  in  his  mistress 
had  been  an  act  of  conformity  exquisitely  calculated, 
her  imagination  yet  sought  in  the  hidden  play  of  his 
influence  the  explanation  of  any  change  of  surface,  any 
difference  of  expression  or  intention.  There  had  been, 
through  life,  as  we  know,  few  quarters  in  which  the 
Princess's  fancy  could  let  itself  loose;  but  it  shook  off 
restraint  when  it  plunged  into  the  figured  void  of  the 
detail  of  that  relation.  This  was  a  realm  it  could  peo 
ple  with  images — again  and  again  with  fresh  ones; 
they  swarmed  there  like  the  strange  combinations  that 
lurked  in  the  woods  at  twilight;  they  loomed  into  the 
definite  and  faded  into  the  vague,  their  main  present 
sign  for  her  being,  however,  that  they  were  always, 
that  they  were  duskily,  agitated.  Her  earlier  vision  of 
a  state  of  bliss  made  insecure  by  the  very  intensity  of 
the  bliss — this  had  dropped  from  her;  she  had  ceased 
to  see,  as  she  lost  herself,  the  pair  of  operatic,  of  high 
Wagnerian  lovers  (she  found,  deep  within  her,  these 
comparisons)  interlocked  in  their  wood  of  enchant 
ment,  a  green  glade  as  romantic  as  one's  dream  of  an 
old  German  forest.  The  picture  was  veiled,  on  the 
contrary,  with  the  dimness  of  trouble;  behind  which 
she  felt,  indistinguishable,  the  procession  of  forms  that 
had  lost,  all  so  pitifully,  their  precious  confidence. 

Therefore,  though  there  was  in  these  days,  for  her, 
with  Amerigo,  little  enough  even  of  the  imitation,  from 

288 


THE   PRINCESS 

day  to  day,  of  unembarrassed  reference — as  she  had 
foreseen,  for  that  matter,  from  the  first,  that  there 
would  be — her  active  conception  of  his  accessibility  to 
their  companion's  own  private  and  unextinguished 
right  to  break  ground  was  not  much  less  active  than 
before.  So  it  was  that  her  inner  sense,  in  spite 
of  everything,  represented  him  as  still  pulling  wires  and 
controlling  currents,  or  rather  indeed  as  muffling  the 
whole  possibility,  keeping  it  down  and  down,  leading 
his  accomplice  continually  on  to  some  new  turn  of  the 
road.  As  regards  herself  Maggie  had  become  more 
conscious  from  week  to  week  of  his  ingenuities  of  in 
tention  to  make  up  to  her  for  their  forfeiture,  in  so 
dire  a  degree,  of  any  reality  of  frankness — a  privation 
that  had  left  on  his  lips  perhaps  a  little  of  the  same 
thirst  with  which  she  fairly  felt  her  own  distorted,  the 
torment  of  the  lost  pilgrim  who  listens  in  desert  sands 
for  the  possible,  the  impossible,  plash  of  water.  It 
was  just  this  hampered  state  in  him,  none  the  less,  that 
she  kept  before  her  when  she  wished  most  to  find 
grounds  of  dignity  for  the  hard  little  passion  which 
nothing  he  had  done  could  smother.  There  were 
hours  enough,  lonely  hours,  in  which  she  let  dignity 
go;  then  there  were  others  when,  clinging  with  her 
winged  concentration  to  some  deep  cell  of  her  heart, 
she  stored  away  her  hived  tenderness  as  if  she  had  gath 
ered  it  all  from  flowers.  He  was  walking  ostensibly 
beside  her,  but  in  fact  given  over,  without  a  break,  to 
the  grey  medium  in  which  he  helplessly  groped ;  a  per 
ception  on  her  part  which  was  a  perpetual  pang  and 
which  might  last  what  it  would — forever  if  need  be — 
VOL.  II.— 19  289 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

but  which,  if  relieved  at  all,  must  be  relieved  by  his  act 
alone.  She  herself  could  do  nothing  more  for  it ;  she 
had  done  the  utmost  possible.  It  was  meantime  not 
the  easier  to  bear  for  this  aspect  under  which  Char 
lotte  was  presented  as  depending  on  him  for  guidance, 
taking  it  from  him  even  in  doses  of  bitterness,  and  yet 
lost  with  him  in  devious  depths.  Nothing  was  thus 
more  sharply  to  be  inferred  than  that  he  had  promptly 
enough  warned  her,  on  hearing  from  her  of  the  pre 
cious  assurance  received  from  his  wife,  that  she 
must  take  care  her  satisfaction  didn't  betray  some 
thing  of  her  danger.  Maggie  had  a  day  of  still 
waiting,  after  allowing  him  time  to  learn  how  un 
reservedly  she  had  lied  for  him — of  waiting  as 
for  the  light  of  she  scarce  knew  what  slow-shining 
reflection  of  this  knowledge  in  his  personal  at 
titude.  What  retarded  evolution,  she  asked  herself 
in  these  hours,  mightn't  poor  Charlotte  all  un 
wittingly  have  precipitated  ?  She  was  thus  poor  Char 
lotte  again  for  Maggie  even  while  Maggie's  own  head 
was  bowed,  and  the  reason  for  this  kept  coming  back 
to  our  young  woman  in  the  conception  of  what  would 
secretly  have  passed.  She  saw  her,  face  to  face  with 
the  Prince,  take  from  him  the  chill  of  his  stiffest  ad 
monition,  with  the  possibilities  of  deeper  difficulty  that 
it  represented  for  each.  She  heard  her  ask,  irritated 
and  sombre,  what  tone,  in  God's  name — since  her 
bravery  didn't  suit  him — she  was  then  to  adopt ;  and, 
by  way  of  a  fantastic  flight  of  divination,  she  heard 
Amerigo  reply,  in  a  voice  of  which  every  fine  note, 
familiar  and  admirable,  came  home  to  her,  that  one 

290 


THE  PRINCESS 

must  really  manage  such  prudences  a  little  for  one's 
self.  It  was  positive  in  the  Princess  that,  for  this,  she 
breathed  Charlotte's  cold  air — turned  away  from  him 
in  it  with  her,  turned  with  her,  in  growing  compassion, 
this  way  and  that,  hovered  behind  her  while  she  felt 
her  ask  herself  where  then  she  should  rest.  Marvel 
lous  the  manner  in  which,  under  such  imaginations, 
Maggie  thus  circled  and  lingered — quite  as  if  she  were, 
materially,  following  her  unseen,  counting  every  step 
she  helplessly  wasted,  noting  every  hindrance  that 
brought  her  to  a  pause. 

A  few  days  of  this,  accordingly,  had  wrought  a 
change  in  that  apprehension  of  the  instant  beatitude  of 
triumph — of  triumph  magnanimous  and  serene — with 
which  the  upshot  of  the  night-scene  on  the  terrace  had 
condemned  our  young  woman  to  make  terms.  She 
had  had,  as  we  know,  her  vision  of  the  gilt  bars  bent, 
of  the  door  of  the  cage  forced  open  from  within  and 
the  creature  imprisoned  roaming  at  large-1- a  move 
ment,  on  the  creature's  part,  that  was  to  have 
even,  for  the  short  interval,  its  impressive  beauty,  but 
of  which  the  limit,  and  in  yet  another  direction,  had 
loomed  straight  into  view  during  her  last  talk  under 
the  great  trees  with  her  father.  It  was  when  she  saw 
his  wife's  face  ruefully  attached  to  the  quarter  to 
which,  in  the  course  of  their  session,  he  had  so  signifi 
cantly  addressed  his  own — it  was  then  that  Maggie 
could  watch  for  its  turning  pale,  it  was  then  she  seemed 
to  know  what  she  had  meant  by  thinking  of  her,  in 
the  shadow  of  his  most  ominous  reference,  as 
"doomed."  If,  as  I  say,  her  attention  now,  day  after 

291 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

day,  so  circled  and  hovered,  it  found  itself  arrested  for 
certain  passages  during  which  she  absolutely  looked 
with  Charlotte's  grave  eyes.  What  she  unfailingly 
made  out  through  them  was  the  figure  of  a  little  quiet 
gentleman  who  mostly  wore,  as  he  moved,  alone,  across 
the  field  of  vision,  a  straw  hat,  a  white  waistcoat  and 
a  blue  necktie,  keeping  a  cigar  in  his  teeth  and  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  and  who,  oftener  than  not,  pre 
sented  a  somewhat  meditative  back  while  he  slowly 
measured  the  perspectives  of  the  park  and  broodingly 
counted  (it  might  have  appeared)  his  steps.  There 
were  hours  of  intensity,  for  a  week  or  two,  when  it 
was  for  all  the  world  as  if  she  had  guardedly  tracked 
her  stepmother,  in  the  great  house,  from  room  to  room 
and  from  window  to  window,  only  to  see  her,  here  and 
there  and  everywhere,  try  her  uneasy  outlook,  ques 
tion  her  issue  and  her  fate.  Something,  unmistak 
ably,  had  come  up  for  her  that  had  never  come  up 
before;  it  represented  a  new  complication  and  had  be 
gotten  a  new  anxiety — things,  these,  that  she  carried 
about  with  her  done  up  in  the  napkin  of  her  lover's 
accepted  rebuke,  while  she  vainly  hunted  for  some  cor 
ner  where  she  might  put  them  safely  down.  The  dis 
guised  solemnity,  the  prolonged  futility  of  her  search 
might  have  been  grotesque  to  a  more  ironic  eye;  but 
Maggie's  provision  of  irony,  which  we  have  taken  for 
naturally  small,  had  never  been  so  scant  as  now,  and 
there  were  moments  while  she  watched  with  her,  thus 
unseen,  when  the  mere  effect  of  being  near  her  was  to 
feel  her  own  heart  in  her  throat,  was  to  be  almost 
moved  to  saying  to  her:  "Hold  on  tight,  my  poor 

292 


THE  PRINCESS 

dear — without  too  much  terror — and  it  will  all  come 
out  somehow." 

Even  to  that  indeed,  she  could  reflect,  Charlotte 
might  have  replied  that  it  was  easy  to  say ;  even  to  that 
no  great  meaning  could  attach  so  long  as  the  little 
meditative  man  in  the  straw  hat  kept  coming  into  view 
with  his  indescribable  air  of  weaving  his  spell,  weav 
ing  it  off  there  by  himself.  In  whatever  quarter  of 
the  horizon  the  appearances  were  scanned  he  was  to  be 
noticed  as  absorbed  in  this  occupation;  and  Maggie 
was  to  become  aware  of  two  or  three  extraordinary 
occasions  of  receiving  from  him  the  hint  that  he  meas 
ured  the  impression  he  produced.  It  was  not  really 
till  after  their  recent  long  talk  in  the  park  that  she 
knew  how  deeply,  how  quite  exhaustively,  they  had 
then  communicated — so  that  they  were  to  remain 
together,  for  the  time,  in  consequence,  quite  in  the  form 
of  a  couple  of  sociable  drinkers  who  sit  back  from  the 
table  over  which  they  have  been  resting  their  elbows, 
over  which  they  have  emptied  to  the  last  drop  their 
respective  charged  cups.  The  cups  were  still  there  on 
the  table,  but  turned  upside  down;  and  nothing  was 
left  for  the  companions  but  to  confirm  by  placid  silences 
the  fact  that  the  wine  had  been  good.  They  had 
parted,  positively,  as  if,  on  either  side,  primed  with  it 
— primed  for  whatever  was  to  be;  and  everything 
between  them,  as  the  month  waned,  added  its  touch  of 
truth  to  this  similitude.  Nothing,  truly,  was  at  pres 
ent  between  them  save  that  they  were  looking  at  each 
other  in  infinite  trust ;  it  fairly  wanted  no  more  words, 
and  when  they  met,  during  the  deep  summer  days,  met 

293 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

even  without  witnesses,  when  they  kissed  at  morning 
and  evening,  or  on  any  of  the  other  occasions  of  con 
tact  that  they  had  always  so  freely  celebrated,  a  pair 
of  birds  of  the  upper  air  could  scarce  have  appeared 
less  to  invite  each  other  to  sit  down  and  worry  afresh. 
So  it  was  that  in  the  house  itself,  where  more  of  his 
waiting  treasures  than  ever  were  provisionally  ranged, 
she  sometimes  only  looked  at  him — from  end  to  end  of 
the  great  gallery,  the  pride  of  the  house,  for  instance — 
as  if,  in  one  of  the  halls  of  a  museum,  she  had  been  an 
earnest  young  woman  with  a  Baedeker  and  he  a  vague 
gentleman  to  whom  even  Baedekers  were  unknown. 
He  had  ever,  of  course,  had  his  way  of  walking  about 
to  review  his  possessions  and  verify  their  condition ; 
but  this  was  a  pastime  to  which  he  now  struck  her  as 
almost  extravagantly  addicted,  and  when  she  passed 
near  him  and  he  turned  to  give  her  a  smile  she  caught 
— or  so  she  fancied — the  greater  depth  of  his  small, 
perpetual  hum  of  contemplation.  It  was  as  if  he  were 
singing  to  himself,  sotto  voce,  as  he  went — and  it  was 
also,  on  occasion,  quite  ineffably,  as  if  Charlotte,  hov 
ering,  watching,  listening,  on  her  side  too,  kept  suffi 
ciently  within  earshot  to  make  it  out  as  song,  and  yet, 
for  some  reason  connected  with  the  very  manner  of 
it,  stood  off  and  didn't  dare. 

One  of  the  attentions  she  had  from  immediately 
after  her  marriage  most  freely  paid  him  was  that  of  her 
interest  in  his  rarities,  her  appreciation  of  his  taste, 
her  native  passion  for  beautiful  objects  and  her  grate 
ful  desire  not  to  miss  anything  he  could  teach  her 
about  them.  Maggie  had  in  due  course  seen  her  begin 

294 


THE   PRINCESS 

to  "work"  this  fortunately  natural  source  of  sympathy 
for  all  it  was  worth.  She  took  possession  of  the 
ground  throughout  its  extent;  she  abounded,  to  odd 
excess,  one  might  have  remarked,  in  the  assumption 
of  its  being  for  her,  with  her  husband,  all  the  ground, 
the  finest,  clearest  air  and  most  breathable  medium 
common  to  them.  It  had  been  given  to  Maggie  to 
wonder  if  she  didn't,  in  these  intensities  of  approba 
tion,  too  much  shut  him  up  to  his  province;  but  this 
was  a  complaint  he  had  never  made  his  daughter,  and 
Charlotte  must  at  least  have  had  for  her  that,  thanks 
to  her  admirable  instinct,  her  range  of  perception 
marching  with  his  own  and  never  falling  behind,  she 
had  probably  not  so  much  as  once  treated  him  to  a 
rasping  mistake  or  a  revealing  stupidity.  Maggie, 
wonderfully,  in  the  summer  days,  felt  it  forced  upon 
her  that  that  was  one  way,  after  all,  of  being  a  genial 
wife;  and  it  was  never  so  much  forced  upon  her  as 
at  these  odd  moments  of  her  encountering  the 
sposi,  as  Amerigo  called  them,  under  the  coved  ceil 
ings  of  Fawns  while,  so  together,  yet  at  the  same  time 
so  separate,  they  were  making  their  daily  round. 
Charlotte  hung  behind,  with  emphasised  attention; 
she  stopped  when  her  husband  stopped,  but  at  the  dis 
tance  of  a  case  or  two,  or  of  whatever  other  succession 
of  objects;  and  the  likeness  of  their  connection  would 
not  have  been  wrongly  figured  if  he  had  been  thought 
of  as  holding  in  one  of  his  pocketed  hands  the  end 
of  a  long  silken  halter  looped  round  her  beautiful 
neck.  He  didn't  twitch  it,  yet  it  was  there;  he  didn't 
drag  her,  but  she  came;  and  those  indications  that 

295 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

I  have  described  the  Princess  as  finding  extraor 
dinary  in  him  were  two  or  three  mute  facial 
intimations  which  his  wife's  presence  didn't  prevent 
his  addressing  his  daughter — nor  prevent  his  daugh 
ter,  as  she  passed,  it  was  doubtless  to  be  added,  from 
flushing  a  little  at  the  receipt  of.  They  amounted 
perhaps  only  to  a  wordless,  wordless  smile,  but  the 
smile  was  the  soft  shake  of  the  twisted  silken  rope, 
and  Maggie's  translation  if  it,  held  in  her  breast 
till  she  got  well  away,  came  out  only,  as  if  it  might 
have  been  overheard,  when  some  door  was  closed 
behind  her.  "Yes,  you  see — I  lead  her  now  by 
the  neck,  I  lead  her  to  her  doom,  and  she  doesn't  so 
much  as  know  what  it  is,  though  she  has  a  fear  in  her 
heart  which,  if  you  had  the  chances  to  apply  your  ear 
there  that  I,  as  a  husband,  have,  you  would  hear  thump 
and  thump  and  thump.  She  thinks  it  may  be,  her 
doom,  the  awful  place  over  there — awful  for  her;  but 
she's  afraid  to  ask,  don't  you  see?  just  as  she's  afraid 
of  not  asking;  just  as  she's  afraid  of  so  many  other 
things  that  she  sees  multiplied  round  her  now  as  por 
tents  and  betrayals.  She'll  know,  however — when  she 
does  know." 

Charlotte's  one  opportunity,  meanwhile,  for  the  air 
of  confidence  she  had  formerly  worn  so  well  and  that 
agreed  so  with  her  firm  and  charming  type,  was  the 
presence  of  visitors,  never,  as  the  season  advanced, 
wholly  intermitted — rather,  in  fact,  so  constant,  with 
all  the  people  who  turned  up  for  luncheon  and  for  tea 
and  to  see  the  house,  now  replete,  now  famous,  that 
Maggie  grew  to  think  again  of  this  large  element  of 

296 


THE  PRINCESS 

"company"  as  of  a  kind  of  renewed  water-supply  for 
the  tank  in  which,  like  a  party  of  panting  gold-fish, 
they  kept  afloat.  It  helped  them,  unmistakably,  with 
each  other,  weakening  the  emphasis  of  so  many  of  the 
silences  of  which  their  intimate  intercourse  would 
otherwise  have  consisted.  Beautiful  and  wonderful 
for  her,  even,  at  times,  was  the  effect  of  these  interven 
tions — their  effect  above  all  in  bringing  home  to  each 
the  possible  heroism  of  perfunctory  things.  They 
learned  fairly  to  live  in  the  perfunctory ;  they  remained 
in  it  as  many  hours  of  the  day  as  might  be;  it  took 
on  finally  the  likeness  of  some  spacious  central  chamber 
in  a  haunted  house,  a  great  overarched  and  over- 
glazed  rotunda,  where  gaiety  might  reign,  but  the 
doors  of  which  opened  into  sinister  circular  passages. 
Here  they  turned  up  for  each  other,  as  they  said,  with 
the  blank  faces  that  denied  any  uneasiness  felt  in  the 
approach;  here  they  closed  numerous  doors  carefully 
behind  them — all  save  the  door  that  connected  the 
place,  as  by  a  straight  tented  corridor,  with  the  outer 
world,  and,  encouraging  thus  the  irruption  of  society, 
imitated  the  aperture  through  which  the  bedizened 
performers  of  the  circus  are  poured  into  the  ring.  The 
great  part  Mrs.  Verver  had  socially  played  came  luck 
ily,  Maggie  could  make  out,  to  her  assistance ;  she  had 
"personal  friends" — Charlotte's  personal  friends  had 
ever  been,  in  London,  at  the  two  houses,  one  of  the 
most  convenient  pleasantries — who  actually  tempered, 
at  this  crisis,  her  aspect  of  isolation ;  and  it  wouldn't 
have  been  hard  to  guess  that  her  best  moments  were 
those  in  which  she  suffered  no  fear  of  becoming  a  bore 

297 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

to  restrain  her  appeal  to  their  curiosity.  Their  curios 
ity  might  be  vague,  but  their  clever  hostess  was  dis 
tinct,  and  she  marched  them  about,  sparing  them  noth 
ing,  as  if  she  counted,  each  day,  on  a  harvest  of  half- 
crowns.  Maggie  met  her  again,  in  the  gallery,  at  the 
oddest  hours,  with  the  party  she  was  entertaining; 
heard  her  draw  out  the  lesson,  insist  upon  the  interest, 
snub,  even,  the  particular  presumption  and  smile  for 
the  general  bewilderment — inevitable  features,  these 
latter,  of  almost  any  occasion — in  a  manner  that  made 
our  young  woman,  herself  incurably  dazzled,  marvel 
afresh  at  the  mystery  by  which  a  creature  who  could 
be  in  some  connexions  so  earnestly  right  could  be  in 
others  so  perversely  wrong.  When  her  father, 
vaguely  circulating,  was  attended  by  his  wife,  it  was 
always  Charlotte  who  seemed  to  bring  up  the  rear; 
but  he  hung  in  the  background  when  she  did  cicerone, 
and  it  was  then  perhaps  that,  moving  mildly  and  mod 
estly  to  and  fro  on  the  skirts  of  the  exhibition,  his  ap 
pearance  of  weaving  his  spell  was,  for  the  initiated 
conscience,  least  to  be  resisted.  Brilliant  women 
turned  to  him  in  vague  emotion,  but  his  response 
scarce  committed  him  more  than  if  he  had  been  the 
person  employed  to  see  that,  after  the  invading  wave 
was  spent,  the  cabinets  were  all  locked  and  the  sym 
metries  all  restored. 

There  was  a  morning  when,  during  the  hour  before 
luncheon  and  shortly  after  the  arrival  of  a  neighbourly 
contingent — neighbourly  from  ten  miles  off — whom 
Mrs.  Verver  had  taken  in  charge,  Maggie  paused  on 
the  threshold  of  the  gallery  through  which  she  had 

298 


THE  PRINCESS 

been  about  to  pass,  faltered  there  for  the  very  impres 
sion  of  his  face  as  it  met  her  from  an  opposite  door. 
Charlotte,  half-way  down  the  vista,  held  together,  as 
if  by  something  almost  austere  in  the  grace  of  her 
authority,  the  semi-scared  (now  that  they  were  there!) 
knot  of  her  visitors,  who,  since  they  had  announced 
themselves  by  telegram  as  yearning  to  inquire  and  ad 
mire,  saw  themselves  restricted  to  this  consistency. 
Her  voice,  high  and  clear  and  a  little  hard,  reached  her 
husband  and  her  step-daughter  while  she  thus  placed 
beyond  doubt  her  cheerful  submission  to  duty.  Her 
words,  addressed  to  the  largest  publicity,  rang  for  some 
minutes  through  the  place,  every  one  as  quiet  to  listen 
as  if  it  had  been  a  church  ablaze  with  tapers  and  she 
were  taking  her  part  in  some  hymn  of  praise.  Fanny 
Assingham  looked  rapt  in  devotion — Fanny  Assing- 
ham  who  forsook  this  other  friend  as  little  as  she  for 
sook  either  her  host  or  the  Princess  or  the  Prince  or 
the  Principino ;  she  supported  her,  in  slow  revolutions, 
in  murmurous  attestations  of  presence,  at  all  such 
times,  and  Maggie,  advancing  after  a  first  hesitation, 
was  not  to  fail  of  noting  her  solemn,  inscrutable  atti 
tude,  her  eyes  attentively  lifted,  so  that  she  might  es 
cape  being  provoked  to  betray  an  impression.  She 
betrayed  one,  however,  as  Maggie  approached,  drop 
ping  her  gaze  to  the  latter's  level  long  enough  to  seem 
to  adventure,  marvellously,  on  a  mute  appeal.  "You 
understand,  don't  you,  that  if  she  didn't  do  this  there 
would  be  no  knowing  what  she  might  do?"  This 
light  Mrs.  Assingham  richly  launched  while  her 
younger  friend,  unresistingly  moved,  became  uncer- 

299 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

tain  again,  and  then,  not  too  much  to  show  it — or, 
rather,  positively  to  conceal  it,  and  to  conceal  some 
thing  more  as  well — turned  short  round  to  one  of  the 
windows  and  awkwardly,  pointlessly  waited.  "The 
largest  of  the  three  pieces  has  the  rare  peculiarity  that 
the  garlands,  looped  round  it,  which,  as  you  see,  are  the 
finest  possible  vieux  Saxe,  are  not  of  the  same  origin 
or  period,  or  even,  wonderful  as  they  are,  of  a  taste 
quite  so  perfect.  They  have  been  put  on  at  a  later 
time,  by  a  process  of  which  there  are  very  few  ex 
amples,  and  none  so  important  as  this,  which  is  really 
quite  unique — so  that,  though  the  whole  thing  is  a  lit 
tle  baroque,  its  value  as  a  specimen  is,  I  believe,  almost 
inestimable." 

So  the  high  voice  quavered,  aiming  truly  at  effects 
far  over  the  heads  of  gaping  neighbours;  so  the 
speaker,  piling  it  up,  sticking  at  nothing,  as  less  inter 
ested  judges  might  have  said,  seemed  to  justify  the 
faith  with  which  she  was  honoured.  Maggie  mean 
while,  at  the  window,  knew  the  strangest  thing  to  be 
happening :  she  had  turned  suddenly  to  crying,  or  was 
at  least  on  the  point  of  it — the  lighted  square  before 
her  all  blurred  and  dim.  The  high  voice  went  on ;  its 
quaver  was  doubtless  for  conscious  ears  only,  but  there 
were  verily  thirty  seconds  during  which  it  sounded,  for 
our  young  woman,  like  the  shriek  of  a  soul  in  pain. 
Kept  up  a  minute  longer  it  would  break  and  collapse 
— so  that  Maggie  felt  herself,  the  next  thing,  turn  with 
a  start  to  her  father.  "Can't  she  be  stopped?  Hasn't 
she  done  it  enough?" — some  such  question  as  that  she 
let  herself  ask  him  to  suppose  in  her.  Then  it  was 

300 


THE  PRINCESS 

that,  across  half  the  gallery — for  he  had  not  moved 
from  where  she  had  first  seen  him — he  struck  her  as 
confessing,  with  strange  tears  in  his  own  eyes,  to 
sharp  identity  of  emotion.  "Poor  thing,  poor  thing" 
— it  reached  straight — "isn't  she,  for  one's  credit, 
on  the  swagger  ?"  After  which,  as,  held  thus  together 
they  had  still  another  strained  minute,  the  shame,  the 
pity,  the  better  knowledge,  the  smothered  protest,  the 
divined  anguish  even,  so  overcame  him  that,  blushing 
to  his  eyes,  he  turned  short  away.  The  affair  but  of 
a  few  'muffled  moments,  this  snatched  communion  yet 
lifted  Maggie  as  on  air — so  much,  for  deep  guesses  on 
her  own  side  too,  it  gave  her  to  think  of.  There  was, 
honestly,  an  awful  mixture  in  things,  and  it  was  not 
closed  to  her  aftersense  of  such  passages — we  have 
already  indeed,  in  other  cases,  seen  it  open — that  the 
deepest  depth  of  all,  in  a  perceived  penalty,  was  that 
you  couldn't  be  sure  some  of  your  compunctions  and 
contortions  wouldn't  show  for  ridiculous.  Amerigo, 
that  morning,  for  instance,  had  been  as  absent  as  he  at 
this  juncture  appeared  to  desire  he  should  mainly  be 
noted  as  being ;  he  had  gone  to  London  for  the  day  and 
the  night — a  necessity  that  now  frequently  rose  for 
him  and  that  he  had  more  than  once  suffered  to  oper 
ate  during  the  presence  of  guests,  successions  of  pretty 
women,  the  theory  of  his  fond  interest  in  whom  had 
been  publicly  cultivated.  It  had  never  occurred  to  his 
wife  to  pronounce  him  ingenuous,  but  there  came  at 
last  a  high  dim  August  dawn  when  she  couldn't  sleep 
and  when,  creeping  restlessly  about  and  breathing  at 
her  window  the  coolness  of  wooded  acres,  she  found 

301 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

the  faint  flush  of  the  east  march  with  the  perception  of 
that  other  almost  equal  prodigy.  It  rosily  coloured 
her  vision  that — even  such  as  he  was,  yes — her  husband 
could  on  occasion  sin  by  excess  of  candour.  He 
wouldn't  otherwise  have  given  as  his  reason  for  going 
up  to  Portland  Place  in  the  August  days  that  he  was 
arranging  books  there.  He  had  bought  a  great  many 
of  late,  and  he  had  had  others,  a  large  number,  sent 
from  Rome — wonders  of  old  print  in  which  her  father 
had  been  interested.  But  when  her  imagination 
tracked  him  to  the  dusty  town,  to  the  house  where 
drawn  blinds  and  pale  shrouds,  where  a  caretaker  and 
a  kitchenmaid  were  alone  in  possession,  it  wasn't  to  see 
him,  in  his  shirtsleeves,  unpacking  battered  boxes. 

She  saw  him,  in  truth,  less  easily  beguiled — saw  him 
wander,  in  the  closed  dusky  rooms,  from  place  to  place, 
or  else,  for  long  periods,  recline  on  deep  sofas  and 
stare  before  him  through  the  smoke  of  ceaseless  cigar 
ettes.  She  made  him  out  as  liking  better  than  any 
thing  in  the  world  just  now  to  be  alone  with  his 
thoughts.  Being  herself  connected  with  his  thoughts, 
she  continued  to  believe,  more  than  she  had  ever  been, 
it  was  thereby  a  good  deal  as  if  he  were  alone  with 
her.  She  made  him  out  as  resting  so  from  that  con 
stant  strain  of  the  perfunctory  to  which  he  was  ex 
posed  at  Fawns ;  and  she  was  accessible  to  the  impres 
sion  of  the  almost  beggared  aspect  of  this  alternative. 
It  was  like  his  doing  penance  in  sordid  ways — being 
sent  to  prison  or  being  kept  without  money ;  it  wouldn't 
have  taken  much  to  make  her  think  of  him  as  really 
kept  without  food.  He  might  have  broken  away, 

302 


THE   PRINCESS 

might  easily  have  started  to  travel;  he  had  a  right — 
thought  wonderful  Maggie  now — to  so  many  more 
freedoms  than  he  took !  His  secret  was  of  course  that 
at  Fawns  he  all  the  while  winced,  was  all  the  while 
in  presences  in  respect  to  which  he  had  thrown  him 
self  back,  with  a  hard  pressure,  on  whatever  mysteries 
of  pride,  whatever  inward  springs  familiar  to  the  man 
of  the  world,  he  could  keep  from  snapping.  Maggie, 
for  some  reason,  had  that  morning,  while  she  watched 
the  sunrise,  taken  an  extraordinary  measure  of  the 
ground  on  which  he  would  have  had  to  snatch  at  pre 
texts  for  absence.  It  all  came  to  her  there — he  got 
off  to  escape  from  a  sound.  The  sound  was  in  her 
own  ears  still — that  of  Charlotte's  high  coerced 
quaver  before  the  cabinets  in  the  hushed  gallery;  the 
voice  by  which  she  herself  had  been  pierced  the  day 
before  as  by  that  of  a  creature  in  anguish  and  by  which, 
while  she  sought  refuge  at  the  blurred  window,  the 
tears  had  been  forced  into  her  eyes.  Her  comprehen 
sion  soared  so  high  that  the  wonder  for  her  became 
really  his  not  feeling  the  need  of  wider  intervals  and 
thicker  walls.  Before  that  admiration  she  also  medi 
tated;  consider  as  she  might  now,  she  kept  reading 
not  less  into  what  he  omitted  than  into  what  he  per 
formed  a  beauty  of  intention  that  touched  her  fairly 
the  more  by  being  obscure.  It  was  like  hanging  over 
a  garden  in  the  dark;  nothing  was  to  be  made  of  the 
confusion  of  growing  things,  but  one  felt  they  were 
folded  flowers,  and  their  vague  sweetness  made  the 
whole  air  their  medium.  He  had  to  turn  away,  but  he 
wasn't  at  least  a  coward;  he  would  wait  on  the  spot 

303 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

for  the  issue  of  what  he  had  done  on  the  spot.  She 
sank  to  her  knees  with  her  arm  on  the  ledge  of  her 
window-seat,  where  she  blinded  her  eyes  from  the  full 
glare  of  seeing  that  his  idea  could  only  be  to  wait, 
whatever  might  come,  at  her  side.  It  was  to  her  buried 
face  that  she  thus,  for  a  long  time,  felt  him  draw  near 
est  ;  though  after  a  while,  when  the  strange  wail  of  the 
gallery  began  to  repeat  its  inevitable  echo,  she  was 
conscious  of  how  that  brought  out  his  pale  hard 
grimace. 


3°4 


XXXIX 

THE  resemblance  had  not  been  present  to  her  on  first 
coming  out  into  the  hot,  still  brightness  of  the  Sun 
day  afternoon — only  the  second  Sunday,  of  all  the 
summer,  when  the  party  of  six,  the  party  of  seven 
including  the  Principino,  had  practically  been  with 
out  accessions  or  invasions;  but  within  sight  of 
Charlotte,  seated  far  away,  very  much  where  she 
had  expected  to  find  her,  the  Princess  fell  to  won 
dering  if  her  friend  wouldn't  be  affected  quite  as  she 
herself  had  been,  that  night  on  the  terrace,  under 
Mrs.  Verver's  perceptive  pursuit.  The  relation, 
to-day,  had  turned  itself  round;  Charlotte  was  seeing 
her  come,  through  patches  of  lingering  noon,  quite 
as  she  had  watched  Charlotte  menace  her  through 
the  starless  dark;  and  there  was  a  moment,  that  of 
her  waiting  a  little  as  they  thus  met  across  the 
distance,  when  the  interval  was  bridged  by  a  recog 
nition  not  less  soundless,  and  to  all  appearance  not 
less  charged  with  strange  meanings,  than  that  of 
the  other  occasion.  The  point,  however,  was  that 
they  had  changed  places;  Maggie  had  from  her  win 
dow,  seen  her  stepmother  leave  the  house — at  so 
unlikely  an  hour,  three  o'clock  of  a  canicular  August, 
for  a  ramble  in  garden  or  grove — and  had  there- 
VOL.  n.— 20  305 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

upon  felt  her  impulse  determined  with  the  same 
sharpness  that  had  made  the  spring  of  her  compan 
ion's  three  weeks  before.  It  was  the  hottest  day  of 
the  season,  and  the  shaded  siesta,  for  people  all  at 
their  ease,  would  certainly  rather  have  been  pre 
scribed;  but  our  young  woman  had  perhaps  not  yet 
felt  it  so  fully  brought  home  that  such  refinements 
of  repose,  among  them,  constituted  the  empty  chair 
at  the  feast.  This  was  the  more  distinct  as  the  feast, 
literally,  in  the  great  bedimmed  dining-room,  the 
cool,  ceremonious  semblance  of  luncheon,  had  just 
been  taking  place  without  Mrs.  Verver.  She  had 
been  represented  but  by  the  plea  of  a  bad  headache, 
not  reported  to  the  rest  of  the  company  by  her  hus 
band,  but  offered  directly  to  Mr.  Verver  himself,  on 
their  having  assembled,  by  her  maid,  deputed  for  the 
effect  and  solemnly  producing  it. 

Maggie  had  sat  down,  with  the  others,  to  viands 
artfully  iced,  to  the  slow  circulation  of  precious 
tinkling  jugs,  to  marked  reserves  of  reference  in 
many  directions — poor  Fanny  Assingham  herself 
scarce  thrusting  her  nose  out  of  the  padded  hollow 
into  which  she  had  withdrawn.  A  consensus  of  lan 
guor,  which  might  almost  have  been  taken  for  a 
community  of  dread,  ruled  the  scene — relieved  only 
by  the  fitful  experiments  of  Father  Mitchell,  good 
holy,  nungry  man,  a  trusted  and  overworked  London 
friend  and  adviser,  who  had  taken,  for  a  week  or  two, 
the  light  neighbouring  service,  local  rites  flourishing 
under  Maggie's  munificence,  and  was  enjoying,  as  a 
convenience,  all  the  bounties  of  the  house.  He  con- 

306 


THE  PRINCESS 

versed  undiscouraged,  Father  Mitchell — conversed 
mainly  with  the  indefinite,  wandering  smile  of  the 
entertainers,  and  the  Princess's  power  to  feel  him  on 
the  whole  a  blessing  for  these  occasions  was  not  im 
paired  by  what  was  awkward  in  her  consciousness  of 
having,  from  the  first  of  her  trouble,  really  found  her 
way  without  his  guidance.  She  asked  herself  at 
times  if  he  suspected  how  more  than  subtly,  how  per 
versely,  she  had  dispensed  with  him,  and  she  balanced 
between  visions  of  all  he  must  privately  have  guessed 
and  certitudes  that  he  had  guessed  nothing  what 
ever.  He  might  nevertheless  have  been  so  urbanely 
filling  up  gaps,  at  present,  for  the  very  reason  that 
his  instinct,  sharper  than  the  expression  of  his  face, 
had  sufficiently  served  him — made  him  aware  of  the 
thin  ice,  figuratively  speaking,  and  of  prolongations  of 
tension,  round  about  him,  mostly  foreign  to  the  circles 
in  which  luxury  was  akin  to  virtue.  Some  day 
in  some  happier  season,  she  would  confess  to  him  that 
she  hadn't  confessed,  though  taking  so  much  on  her 
conscience;  but  just  now  she  was  carrying  in  her 
weak,  stiffened  hand  a  glass  filled  to  the  brim,  as 
to  which  she  had  recorded  a  vow  that  no  drop  should 
overflow.  She  feared  the  very  breath  of  a  better 
wisdom,  the  jostle  of  the  higher  light,  of  heavenly  help 
itself;  and,  in  addition,  however  that  might  be,  she 
drew  breath  this  afternoon,  as  never  yet,  in  an  ele 
ment  heavy  to  oppression. 

Something  grave  had  happened,  somehow  and 
somewhere,  and  she  had,  God  knew,  her  choice  of 
suppositions:  her  heart  stood  still  when  she  won- 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

dered  above  all  if  the  cord  mightn't  at  last  have 
snapped  between  her  husband  and  her  father.  She 
shut  her  eyes  for  dismay  at  the  possibility  of  such  a 
passage — there  moved  before  them  the  procession  of 
ugly  forms  it  might  have  taken.  "Find  out  for  your 
self !"  she  had  thrown  to  Amerigo,  for  her  last  word, 
on  the  question  of  who  else  "knew,"  that  night  of  the 
breaking  of  the  Bowl;  and  she  flattered  herself  that 
she  hadn't  since  then  helped  him,  in  her  clear  con 
sistency,  by  an  inch.  It  was  what  she  had  given  him, 
all  these  weeks,  to  be  busy  with,  and  she  had  again 
and  again  lain  awake  for  the  obsession  of  this  sense 
of  his  uncertainty  ruthlessly  and  endlessly  playing 
with  his  dignity.  She  had  handed  him  over  to 
an  ignorance  that  couldn't  even  try  to  become  in 
different  and  that  yet  wouldn't  project  itself,  either, 
into  the  cleared  air  of  conviction.  In  proportion  as 
he  was  generous  it  had  bitten  into  his  spirit, 
and  more  than  once  she  had  said  to  herself  that  to 
break  the  spell  she  had  cast  upon  him  and  that 
the  polished  old  ivory  of  her  father's  inattackable  sur 
face  made  so  absolute,  he  would  suddenly  commit 
some  mistake  or  some  violence,  smash  some  window- 
pane  for  air,  fail  even  of  one  of  his  blest  inveteracies 
of  taste.  In  that  way,  fatally,  he  would  have  put  him 
self  in  the  wrong — blighting  by  a  single  false  step 
the  perfection  of  his  outward  show. 

These  shadows  rose  and  fell  for  her  while  Father 
Mitchell  prattled;  with  other  shadows  as  well,  those 
that  hung  over  Charlotte  herself,  those  that  marked 
her  as  a  prey  to  equal  suspicions — to  the  idea,  in  par- 

308 


THE  PRINCESS 

ticular,  of  a  change,  such  a  change  as  she  didn't  dare 
to  face,  in  the  relations  of  the  two  men.  Or  there 
were  yet  other  possibilities,  as  it  seemed  to  Maggie; 
there  were  always  too  many,  and  all  of  them  things 
of  evil  when  one's  nerves  had  at  last  done  for  one  all 
that  nerves  could  do;  had  left  one  in  a  darkness  of 
prowling  dangers  that  was  like  the  predicament  of 
the  night-watcher  in  a  beast-haunted  land  who  has 
no  more  means  for  a  fire.  She  might,  with  such 
nerves,  have  supposed  almost  anything  of  any  one; 
anything,  almost,  of  poor  Bob  Assingham,  con 
demned  to  eternal  observances  and  solemnly  appre 
ciating  her  father's  wine;  anything,  verily,  yes,  of  the 
good  priest,  as  he  finally  sat  back  with  fat  folded 
hands  and  twiddled  his  thumbs  on  his  stomach.  The 
good  priest  looked  hard  at  the  decanters,  at  the  dif 
ferent  dishes  of  dessert — he  eyed  them,  half-obliquely, 
as  if  they  might  have  met  him  to-day,  for  conversa 
tion,  better  than  any  one  present.  But  the  Princess 
had  her  fancy  at  last  about  that  too;  she  was  in  the 
midst  of  a  passage,  before  she  knew  it,  between 
Father  Mitchell  and  Charlotte — some  approach  he 
would  have  attempted  with  her,  that  very  morning 
perhaps,  to  the  circumstance  of  an  apparent  detach 
ment,  recently  noted  in  her,  from  any  practice  of 
devotion.  He  would  have  drawn  from  this,  say,  his 
artless  inference — taken  it  for  a  sign  of  some 
smothered  inward  trouble  and  pointed,  naturally,  the 
moral  that  the  way  out  of  such  straits  was  not 
through  neglect  of  the  grand  remedy.  He  had  pos 
sibly  prescribed  contrition — he  had  at  any  rate  quick- 

309 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

ened  in  her  the  beat  of  that  false  repose  to  which  our 
young  woman's  own  act  had  devoted  her  at  her  all  so 
deluded  instance.  The  falsity  of  it  had  laid  traps 
compared  to  which  the  imputation  of  treachery  even 
accepted  might  have  seemed  a  path  of  roses.  The 
acceptance,  strangely,  would  have  left  her  nothing 
to  do — she  could  have  remained,  had  she  liked,  all 
insolently  passive;  whereas  the  failure  to  proceed 
against  her,  as  it  might  have  been  called,  left  her 
everything,  and  all  the  more  that  it  was  wrapped  so 
in  confidence.  She  had  to  confirm,  day  after  day,  the 
Tightness  of  her  cause  and  the  justice  and  felicity  of 
her  exemption — so  that  wouldn't  there  have  been, 
fairly,  in  any  explicit  concern  of  Father  Mitchell's, 
depths  of  practical  derision  of  her  success? 

The  question  was  provisionally  answered,  at  all 
events,  by  the  time  the  party  at  luncheon  had  begun 
to  disperse — with  Maggie's  version  of  Mrs.  Verver 
sharp  to  the  point  of  representing  her  pretext  for  ab 
sence  as  a  positive  flight  from  derision.  She  met 
the  good  priest's  eyes  before  they  separated,  and 
priests  were  really,  at  the  worst,  so  to  speak,  such 
wonderful  people  that  she  believed  him  for  an  instant 
on  the  verge  of  saying  to  her,  in  abysmal  softness: 
"Go  to  Mrs.  Verver,  my  child — you  go:  you'll  find 
that  you  can  help  her."  This  didn't  come,  however; 
nothing  came  but  the  renewed  twiddle  of  thumbs 
over  the  satisfied  stomach  and  the  full  flush,  the  com 
ical  candour,  of  reference  to  the  hand  employed  at 
Fawns  for  mayonnaise  of  salmon.  Nothing  came 
but  the  receding  backs  of  each  of  the  others — -her 

310 


THE  PRINCESS 

father's  slightly  bent  shoulders,  in  especial,  which 
seemed  to  weave  his  spell,  by  the  force  of  habit,  not 
less  patiently  than  if  his  wife  had  been  present.  Her 
husband  indeed  was  present  to  feel  anything  there 
might  be  to  feel — which  was  perhaps  exactly  why 
this  personage  was  moved  promptly  to  emulate  so 
definite  an  example  of  "sloping."  He  had  his  occu 
pations — books  to  arrange  perhaps  even  at  Fawns; 
the  idea  of  the  siesta,  moreover,  in  all  the  conditions, 
had  no  need  to  be  loudly  invoked.  Maggie,  was, 
in  the  event,  left  alone  for  a  minute  with  Mrs.  As- 
singham,  who,  after  waiting  for  safety,  appeared  to 
have  at  heart  to  make  a  demonstration.  The  stage 
of  "talking  over"  had  long  passed  for  them;  when 
they  communicated  now  it  was  on  quite  ultimate 
facts;  but  Fanny  desired  to  testify  to  the  existence, 
on  her  part,  of  an  attention  that  nothing  escaped. 
She  was  like  the  kind  lady  who,  happening  to  linger 
at  the  circus  while  the  rest  of  the  spectators  pour 
grossly  through  the  exits,  falls  in  with  the  over 
worked  little  trapezist  girl — the  acrobatic  support 
presumably  of  embarrassed  and  exacting  parents — 
and  gives  her,  as  an  obscure  and  meritorious  artist, 
assurance  of  benevolent  interest.  What  was  clear 
est,  always,  in  our  young  woman's  imaginings,  was 
the  sense  of  being  herself  left,  for  any  occasion,  in  the 
breach.  She  was  essentially  there  to  bear  the  burden, 
in  the  last  resort,  of  surrounding  omissions  and 
evasions,  and  it  was  eminently  to  that  office  she  had 
been  to-day  abandoned — with  this  one  alleviation, 
as  appeared,  of  Mrs.  Assingham's  keeping  up  with 

311 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

her.  Mrs.  Assingham  suggested  that  she  too  was 
still  on  the  ramparts — though  her  gallantry  proved 
indeed  after  a  moment  to  consist  not  a  little  of  her 
curiosity.  She  had  looked  about  and  seen  their  com 
panions  beyond  earshot. 

"Don't  you  really  want  us  to  go ?" 

Maggie  found  a  faint  smile.  "Do  you  really 
want  to ?" 

It  made  her  friend  colour.  "Well  then — no.  But 
we  ivould,  you  know,  at  a  look  from  you.  We'd  pack 
up  and  be  off — as  a  sacrifice." 

"Ah,  make  no  sacrifice,"  said  Maggie.  "See  me 
through." 

"That's  it — that's  all   I   want.     I  should  be   too 

base !    Besides,"    Fanny   went   on,   "you're   too 

splendid." 

"Splendid?" 

"Splendid.  Also,  you  know,  you  are  all  but 
'through.'  You've  done  it,"  said  Mrs.  Assingham. 

But  Maggie  only  half  took  it  from  her.  "What 
does  it  strike  you  that  I've  done?" 

"What  you  wanted.    They're  going." 

Maggie  continued  to  look  at  her.  "Is  that  what 
I  wanted?" 

"Oh,  it  wasn't  for  you  to  say.  That  was  his 
business." 

"My  father's?"  Maggie  asked  after  an  hesitation. 

"Your  father's.  He  has  chosen — and  now  she 
knows.  She  sees  it  all  before  her — and  she  can't 
speak,  or  resist,  or  move  a  little  finger.  That's  what's 
the  matter  with  her,"  said  Fanny  Assingham. 

312 


THE  PRINCESS 

It  made  a  picture,  somehow,  for  the  Princess,  as 
they  stood  there — the  picture  that  the  words  of  oth 
ers,  whatever  they  might  be,  always  made  for  her, 
even  when  her  vision  was  already  charged,  better 
than  any  words  of  her  own.  She  saw,  round  about 
her,  through  the  chinks  of  the  shutters,  the  hard 
glare  of  nature — saw  Charlotte,  somewhere  in  it, 
virtually  at  bay,  and  yet  denied  the  last  grace  of  any 
protecting  truth.  She  saw  her  off  somewhere  all 
unaided,  pale  in  her  silence  and  taking  in  her  fate. 
"Has  she  told  you?"  she  then  asked. 

Her  companion  smiled  superior.  "I  don't  need  to 
be  told — either!  I  see  something,  thank  God,  every 
day."  And  then  as  Maggie  might  appear  to  be  won 
dering  what,  for  instance:  "I  see  the  long  miles  of 
ocean  and  the  dreadful  great  country,  State  after 
State — which  have  never  seemed  to  me  so  big  or 
so  terrible.  I  see  them  at  last,  day  by  day  and  step 
by  step,  at  the  far  end — and  I  see  them  never  come 
back.  But  never — simply.  I  see  the  extraordinary 
'interesting'  place — which  I've  never  been  to,  you 
know,  and  you  have — and  the  exact  degree  in  which 
she  will  be  expected  to  be  interested." 

"She  will  be,"  Maggie  presently  replied. 

"Expected?" 

"Interested." 

For  a  little,  after  this,  their  eyes  met  on  it;  at  the 
end  of  which  Fanny  said:  "She'll  be — yes — what 
she'll  have  to  be.  And  it  will  be — won't  it  ? — for  ever 
and  ever."  She  spoke  as  abounding  in  her  friend's 
sense,  but  it  made  Maggie  still  only  look  at  her. 

313 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

These  were  large  words  and  large  visions — all  the 
more  that  now,  really,  they  spread  and  spread.  In 
the  midst  of  them,  however,  Mrs.  Assingham  had 
soon  enough  continued.  "When  I  talk  of  'knowing,' 
indeed,  I  don't  mean  it  as  you  would  have  a  right 
to  do.  You  know  because  you  see — and  I  don't  see 
him.  I  don't  make  him  out,"  she  almost  crudely  con 
fessed. 

Maggie  again  hesitated.  "You  mean  you  don't 
make  out  Amerigo?" 

But  Fanny  shook  her  head,  and  it  was  quite  as  if, 
as  an  appeal  to  one's  intelligence,  the  making  out  of 
Amerigo  had,  in  spite  of  everything,  long  been  su 
perseded.  Then  Maggie  measured  the  reach  of  her 
allusion,  and  how  what  she  next  said  gave  her  mean 
ing  a  richness.  No  other  name  was  to  be  spoken, 
and  Mrs.  Assingham  had  taken  that,  without  delay, 
from  her  eyes — with  a  discretion,  still,  that  fell  short 
but  by  an  inch.  "You  know  how  he  feels." 

Maggie  at  this  then  slowly  matched  her  headshake. 
"I  know  nothing." 

"You  know  how  you  feel." 

But  again  she  denied  it.  "  I  know  nothing.  If  I 
did !" 

"Well,  if  you  did?"  Fanny  asked  as  she  faltered. 

She  had  had  enough,  however.  "I  should  die,"  she 
said  as  she  turned  away. 

She  went  to  her  room,  through  the  quiet  house; 
she  roamed  there  a  moment,  picking  up,  pointlessly, 
a  different  fan,  and  then  took  her  way  to  the  shaded 
apartments  in  which,  at  this  hour,  the  Principino 

3H 


THE  PRINCESS 

would  be  enjoying  his  nap.  She  passed  through  the 
first  empty  room,  the  day  nursery,  and  paused  at  an 
open  door.  The  inner  room,  large,  dim  and  cool, 
was  equally  calm;  her  boy's  ample,  antique,  historical, 
royal  crib,  consecrated,  reputedly,  by  the  guarded 
rest  of  heirs-apparent,  and  a  gift,  early  in  his  career, 
from  his  grandfather,  ruled  the  scene  from  the  centre, 
in  the  stillness  of  which  she  could  almost  hear  the 
child's  soft  breathing.  The  prime  protector  of  his 
dreams  was  installed  beside  him;  her  father  sat  there 
with  as  little  motion — with  head  thrown  back  and 
supported,  with  eyes  apparently  closed,  with  the  fine 
foot  that  was  so  apt  to  betray  nervousness  at  peace 
upon  the  other  knee,  with  the  unfathomable  heart 
folded  in  the  constant  flawless  freshness  of  the  white 
waistcoat  that  could  always  receive  in  its  armholes 
the  firm  prehensile  thumbs.  Mrs.  Noble  had  majesti 
cally  melted,  and  the  whole  place  signed  her  tem 
porary  abdication;  yet  the  actual  situation  was 
regular,  and  Maggie  lingered  but  to  look.  She 
looked  over  her  fan,  the  top  of  which  was  pressed 
against  her  face,  long  enough  to  wonder  if  her  father 
really  slept  or  if,  aware  of  her,  he  only  kept  con 
sciously  quiet.  Did  his  eyes  truly  fix  her  between 
lids  partly  open,  and  was  she  to  take  this — his  fore- 
bearance  from  any  question — only  as  a  sign  again 
that  everything  was  left  to  her?  She  at  all  events, 
for  a  minute,  watched  his  immobility — then,  as  if 
once  more  renewing  her  total  submission,  returned, 
without  a  sound,  to  her  own  quarters. 

A  strange  impulse  was  sharp  in  her,  but  it  was 
315 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

for  her  part,  the  desire  to  shift  the  weight.  She  could 
as  little  have  slept  as  she  could  have  slept  that  morn 
ing,  days  before,  when  she  had  watched  the  first  dawn 
from  her  window.  Turned  to  the  east,  this  side  of 
her  room  was  now  in  shade,  with  the  two  wings  of 
the  casement  folded  back  and  the  charm  she  always 
found  in  her  seemingly  perched  position — as  if  her 
outlook,  from  above  the  high  terraces,  was  that  of 
some  castle-tower  mounted  on  a  rock.  When  she 
stood  there  she  hung  over,  over  the  gardens  and  the 
woods — all  of  which  drowsed  below  her,  at  this  hour, 
in  the  immensity  of  light.  The  miles  of  shade  looked 
hot,  the  banks  of  flowers  looked  dim;  the  peacocks 
on  the  balustrades  let  their  tails  hang  limp  and  the 
smaller  birds  lurked  among  the  leaves.  Nothing 
therefore  would  have  appeared  to  stir  in  the  brilliant 
void  if  Maggie,  at  the  moment  she  was  about  to  turn 
away,  had  not  caught  sight  of  a  moving  spot,  a  clear 
green  sunshade  in  the  act  of  descending  a  flight  of 
steps.  It  passed  down  from  the  terrace,  receding,  at 
a  distance,  from  sight,  and  carried,  naturally,  so  as 
to  conceal  the  head  and  back  of  its  bearer;  but  Mag 
gie  had  quickly  recognised  the  white  dress  and  the 
particular  motion  of  this  adventurer — had  taken  in 
that  Charlotte,  of  all  people,  had  chosen  the  glare 
of  noon  for  an  exploration  of  the  gardens,  and  that 
she  could  be  betaking  herself  only  to  some  unvisited 
quarter  deep  in  them,  or  beyond  them,  that  she  had  al 
ready  marked  as  a  superior  refuge.  The  Princess  kept 
her  for  a  few  minutes  in  sight,  watched  her  long 
enough  to  feel  her,  by  the  mere  betrayal  of  her  pace 

316 


THE  PRINCESS 

and  direction,  driven  in  a  kind  of  flight,  and  then  un 
derstood,  for  herself,  why  the  act  of  sitting  still  had 
become  impossible  to  either  of  them.  There  came  to 
her,  confusedly,  some  echo  of  an  ancient  fable — some 
vision  of  lo  goaded  by  the  gadfly  or  of  Ariadne  roam 
ing  the  lone  sea-strand.  It  brought  with  it  all  the 
sense  of  her  own  intention  and  desire;  she  too  might 
have  been,  for  the  hour,  some  far-off  harassed  heroine 
— only  with  a  part  to  play  for  which  she  knew,  exact 
ly,  no  inspiring  precedent.  She  knew  but  that,  all  the 
while — all  the  while  of  her  sitting  there  among  the 
others  without  her — she  had  wanted  to  go  straight 
to  this  detached  member  of  the  party  and  make 
somehow,  for  her  support,  the  last  demonstration. 
A  pretext  was  all  that  was  needful,  and  Maggie  after 
another  instant  had  found  one. 

She  had  caught  a  glimpse,  before  Mrs.  Verver  dis 
appeared,  of  her  carrying  a  book — made  out,  half  lost 
in  the  folds  of  her  white  dress,  the  dark  cover  of  a  vol 
ume  that  was  to  explain  her  purpose  in  case  of  her 
being  met  with  surprise,  and  the  mate  of  which,  pre 
cisely,  now  lay  on  Maggie's  table.  The  book  was  an 
old  novel  that  the  Princess  had  a  couple  of  days 
before  mentioned  having  brought  down  from  Port 
land  Place  in  the  charming  original  form  of  its  three 
volumes.  Charlotte  had  hailed,  with  a  specious  glit 
ter  of  interest,  the  opportunity  to  read  it,  and  our 
young  woman  had,  thereupon,  on  the  morrow, 
directed  her  maid  to  carry  it  to  Mrs.  Verver's  apart 
ments.  She  was  afterwards  to  observe  that  this  mes 
senger,  unintelligent  or  inadvertent,  had  removed 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

but  one  of  the  volumes,  which  happened  not  to  be 
the  first.  Still  possessed,  accordingly,  of  the  first 
while  Charlotte,  going  out,  fantastically,  at  such  an 
hour,  to  cultivate  romance  in  an  arbour,  was  help 
lessly  armed  with  the  second,  Maggie  prepared  on 
the  spot  to  sally  forth  with  succour.  The  right  vol 
ume,  with  a  parasol,  was  all  she  required — in 
addition,  that  is,  to  the  bravery  of  her  general  idea. 
She  passed  again  through  the  house,  unchallenged, 
and  emerged  upon  the  terrace,  which  she  followed, 
hugging  the  shade,  with  that  consciousness  of  turning 
the  tables  on  her  friend  which  we  have  already  noted. 
But  so  far  as  she  went,  after  descending  into  the  open 
and  beginning  to  explore  the  grounds,  Mrs.  Verver 
had  gone  still  further — with  the  increase  of  the 
oddity,  moreover,  of  her  having  exchanged  the  pro 
tection  of  her  room  for  these  exposed  and  shining 
spaces.  It  was  not,  fortunately,  however,  at  last, 
that  by  persisting  in  pursuit  one  didn't  arrive  at 
regions  of  admirable  shade:  this  was  the  asylum,  pre 
sumably,  that  the  poor  wandering  woman  had  had  in 
view — several  wide  alleys,  in  particular,  of  great 
length,  densely  overarched  with  the  climbing  rose 
and  the  honeysuckle  and  converging,  in  separate 
green  vistas,  at  a  sort  of  umbrageous  temple,  an  an 
cient  rotunda,  pillared  and  statued,  niched  and  roofed, 
yet  with  its  uncorrected  antiquity,  like  that  of  every 
thing  else  at  Fawns,  conscious  hitherto  of  no  violence 
from  the  present  and  no  menace  from  the  future. 
Charlotte  had  paused  there,  in  her  frenzy,  or  what 
ever  it  was  to  be  called;  the  place  was  a  conceivable 


THE  PRINCESS 

retreat,  and  she  was  staring  before  her,  from  the  seat 
to  which  she  appeared  to  have  sunk,  all  unwittingly, 
as  Maggie  stopped  at  the  beginning  of  one  of  the  per 
spectives. 

It  was  a  repetition  more  than  ever  then  of  the 
evening  on  the  terrace;  the  distance  was  too  great 
to  assure  her  she  had  been  immediately  seen,  but  the 
Princess  waited,  with  her  intention,  as  Charlotte  on 
the  other  occasion  had  waited — allowing,  oh  allow 
ing,  for  the  difference  of  the  intention!  Maggie  was 
full  of  the  sense  of  that — so  full  that  it  made  her  im 
patient;  whereupon  she  moved  forward  a  little, 
placing  herself  in  range  of  the  eyes  that  had  been 
looking  off  elsewhere,  but  that  she  had  suddenly 
called  to  recognition.  Charlotte  had  evidently  not 
dreamed  of  being  followed,  and  instinctively,  with  her 
pale  stare,  she  stiffened  herself  for  protest.  Maggie 
could  make  that  out — as  well  as,  further,  however, 
that  her  second  impression  of  her  friend's  approach 
had  an  instant  effect  on  her  attitude.  The  Princess 
came  nearer,  gravely  and  in  silence,  but  fairly  paused 
again,  to  give  her  time  for  whatever  she  would. 
Whatever  she  would,  whatever  she  could,  was  what 
Maggie  wanted — wanting  above  all  to  make  it  as  easy 
for  her  as  the  case  permitted.  That  was  not  what 
Charlotte  had  wanted  the  other  night,  but  this  never 
mattered — the  great  thing  was  to  allow  her,  was 
fairly  to  produce  in  her,  the  sense  of  highly  choosing. 
At  first,  clearly,  she  had  been  frightened;  she  had 
not  been  pursued,  it  had  quickly  struck  her,  without 
some  design  on  the  part  of  her  pursuer,  and  what 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

might  she  not  be  thinking  of  in  addition  but  the  way 
she  had,  when  herself  the  pursuer,  made  her  step 
daughter  take  in  her  spirit  and  her  purpose?  It  had 
sunk  into  Maggie  at  the  time,  that  hard  insistence, 
and  Mrs.  Verver  had  felt  it  and  seen  it  and  heard 
it  sink;  which  wonderful  remembrance  of  pressure 
successfully  applied  had  naturally,  till  now,  remained 
with  her.  But  her  stare  was  like  a  projected  fear  that 
the  buried  treasure,  so  dishonestly  come  by,  for  which 
her  companion's  still  countenance,  at  the  hour  and 
afterwards,  had  consented  to  serve  as  the  deep  soil, 
might  have  worked  up  again  to  the  surface,  to  be 
thrown  back  upon  her  hands.  Yes,  it  was  positive 
that  during  one  of  these  minutes  the  Princess  had  the 
vision  of  her  particular  alarm.  "It's  her  lie,  it's  her  lie 
that  has  mortally  disagreed  with  her;  she  can  keep 
down  no  longer  her  rebellion  at  it,  and  she  has  come 
to  retract  it,  to  disown  it  and  denounce  it — to  give  me 
full  in  my  face  the  truth  instead."  This,  for  a  con 
centrated  instant,  Maggie  felt  her  helplessly  gasp — 
but  only  to  let  it  bring  home  the  indignity,  the  pity 
of  her  state.  She  herself  could  but  tentatively  hover, 
place  in  view  the  book  she  carried,  look  as  little  dan 
gerous,  look  as  abjectly  mild,  as  possible;  remind 
herself  really  of  people  she  had  read  about  in  stories 
of  the  wild  west^  people  who  threw  up  their  hands, 
on  certain  occasions,  as  a  sign  they  weren't  carrying 
revolvers.  She  could  almost  have  smiled  at  last, 
troubled  as  she  yet  knew  herself,  to  show  how  richly 
she  was  harmless;  she  held  up  her  volume,  which  was 
so  weak  a  weapon,  and  while  she  continued,  for  con- 

320 


THE  PRINCESS 

sideration,  to  keep  her  distance,  she  explained  with 
as  quenched  a  quaver  as  possible.  "I  saw  you  come 
out — saw  you  from  my  window,  and  couldn't  bear  to 
think  you  should  find  yourself  here  without  the  be 
ginning  of  your  book.  This  is  the  beginning;  you've 
got  the  wrong  volume,  and  I've  brought  you  out  the 
right." 

She  remained  after  she  had  spoken;  it  was  like 
holding  a  parley  with  a  possible  adversary,  and  her 
intense,  her  exalted  little  smile  asked  for  formal  leave. 
"May  I  come  nearer  now?"  she  seemed  to  say — as 
to  which,  however,  the  next  minute,  she  saw  Char 
lotte's  reply  lose  itself  in  a  strange  process,  a  thing 
of  several  sharp  stages,  which  she  could  stand  there 
and  trace.  The  dread,  after  a  minute,  had  dropped 
from  her  face;  though,  discernibly  enough,  she  still 
couldn't  believe  in  her  having,  in  so  strange  a  fashion, 
been  deliberately  made  up  to.  If  she  had  been  made 
up  to,  at  least,  it  was  with  an  idea — the  idea  that 
had  struck  her  at  first  as  necessarily  dangerous. 
That  it  wasn't,  insistently  wasn't,  this  shone  from 
Maggie  with  a  force  finally  not  to  be  resisted;  and 
on  that  perception,  on  the  immense  relief  so  consti 
tuted,  everything  had  by  the  end  of  three  minutes 
extraordinarily  changed.  Maggie  had  come  out  to 
her,  really,  because  she  knew  her  doomed,  doomed  to 
a  separation  that  was  like  a  knife  in  her  heart;  and 
in  the  very  sight  of  her  uncontrollable,  her  blinded 
physical  quest  of  a  peace  not  to  be  grasped,  something 
of  Mrs.  Assingham's  picture  of  her  as  thrown,  for  a 
grim  future,  beyond  the  great  sea  and  the  great  con- 

VOL.  ii.— 21  321 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

tinent  had  at  first  found  fulfilment.  She  had  got 
away,  in  this  fashion — burning  behind  her,  almost, 
the  ships  of  disguise — to  let  her  horror  of  what  was 
before  her  play  up  without  witnesses;  and  even  after 
Maggie's  approach  had  presented  an  innocent  front 
it  was  still  not  to  be  mistaken  that  she  bristled  with 
the  signs  of  her  extremity.  It  was  not  to  be  said 
for  them,  either,  that  they  were  draped  at  this  houi 
in  any  of  her  usual  graces;  unveiled  and  all  but  un 
ashamed,  they  were  tragic  to  the  Princess  in  spite 
of  the  dissimulation  that,  with  the  return  of  compar 
ative  confidence,  was  so  promptly  to  operate.  How 
tragic,  in  essence,  the  very  change  made  vivid,  the 
instant  stiffening  of  the  spring  of  pride — this  for  pos 
sible  defence  if  not  for  possible  aggression.  Pride 
indeed,  the  next  moment,  had  become  the  mantle 
caught  up  for  protection  and  perversity;  she  flung 
it  round  her  as  a  denial  of  any  loss  of  her  freedom. 
To  be  doomed  was,  in  her  situation,  to  have  extrava 
gantly  incurred  a  doom,  so  that  to  confess  to 
wretchedness  was,  by  the  same  stroke,  to  confess  to 
falsity.  She  wouldn't  confess,  she  didn't — a  thou 
sand  times  no;  she  only  cast  about  her,  and  quite 
frankly  and  fiercely,  for  something  else  that  would 
give  colour  to  her  having  burst  her  bonds.  Her 
eyes  expanded,  her  bosom  heaved  as  she  invoked  it, 
and  the  effect  upon  Maggie  was  verily  to  wish  she 
could  only  help  her  to  it.  She  presently  got  up — 
which  seemed  to  mean  "Oh,  stay  if  you  like!" — 
and  when  she  had  moved  about  awhile  at  random, 

322 


THE  PRINCESS 

looking  away,  looking  at  anything,  at  everything 
but  her  visitor;  when  she  had  spoken  of  the 
temperature  and  declared  that  she  revelled  in  it;  when 
she  had  uttered  her  thanks  for  the  book,  which, 
a  little  incoherently,  with  her  second  volume,  she 
perhaps  found  less  clever  than  she  expected;  when 
she  had  let  Maggie  approach  sufficiently  closer 
to  lay,  untouched,  the  tribute  in  question  on  a  bench 
and  take  up  obligingly  its  superfluous  mate:  when 
she  had  done  these  things  she  sat  down  in  another 
place,  more  or  less  visibly  in  possession  of  her  part. 
Our  young  woman  was  to  have  passed,  in  all  her 
adventure,  no  stranger  moments;  for  she  not  only 
now  saw  her  companion  fairly  agree  to  take  her 
then  for  the  poor  little  person  she  was  finding  it 
so  easy  to  appear,  but  fell,  in  a  secret,  respon 
sive  ecstasy,  to  wondering  if  there  were  not  some 
supreme  abjection  with  which  she  might  be  inspired. 
Vague,  but  increasingly  brighter,  this  possibility 
glimmered  on  her.  It  at  last  hung  there  ade 
quately  plain  to  Charlotte  that  she  had  presented 
herself  once  more  to  (as  they  said)  grovel;  and  that, 
truly,  made  the  stage  large.  It  had  absolutely,  within 
the  time,  taken  on  the  dazzling  merit  of  being  large 
for  each  of  them  alike. 

"I'm  glad  to  see  you  alone — there's  something  I've 
been  wanting  to  say  to  you.  I'm  tired,"  said  Mrs. 
Verver,  "I'm  tired !" 

"Tired ?"  It  had  dropped  the  next  thing;  it 

couldn't  all  come  at  once;  but  Maggie  had  already 

323 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

guessed  what  it  was,  and  the  flush  of  recognition  was 
in  her  face. 

"Tired  of  this  life — the  one  we've  been  leading. 
You  like  it,  I  know,  but  I've  dreamed  another 
dream."  She  held  up  her  head  now;  her  lighted  eyes 
more  triumphantly  rested;  she  was  finding,  she  was 
following  her  way.  Maggie,  by  the  same  influence, 
sat  in  sight  of  it ;  there  was  something  she  was  saving, 
some  quantity  of  which  she  herself  was  judge; 
and  it  was  for  a  long  moment,  even  with  the  sacrifice 
the  Princess  had  come  to  make,  a  good  deal  like 
watching  her,  from  the  solid  shore,  plunge  into  un 
certain,  into  possibly  treacherous  depths.  "I  see 
something  else,"  she  went  on;  "I've  an  idea  that 
greatly  appeals  to  me — I've  had  it  for  a  long  time. 
It  has  come  over  me  that  we're  wrong.  Our  real  life 
isn't  here." 

Maggie  held  her  breath.    "  'Ours' ?" 

"My  husband's  and  mine.  I'm  not  speaking  for 
you." 

"Oh!"  said  Maggie,  only  praying  not  to  be,  not 
even  to  appear,  stupid. 

"I'm  speaking  for  ourselves.  I'm  speaking,"  Char 
lotte  brought  out,  "for  him." 

"I  see.    For  my  father." 

"For  your  father.  For  whom  else?"  They  looked 
at  each  other  hard  now,  but  Maggie's  face  took 
refuge  in  the  intensity  of  her  interest.  She  was  not 
at  all  events  so  stupid  as  to  treat  her  companion's 
question  as  requiring  an  answer;  a  discretion  that  her 
controlled  stillness  had  after  an  instant  justified.  "I 

324 


THE  PRINCESS 

must  risk  your  thinking  me  selfish — for  of  course 
you  know  what  it  involves.  Let  me  admit  it — I  am 
selfish.  I  place  my  husband  first." 

"Well,"  said  Maggie  smiling  and  smiling,  "since 
that's  where  I  place  mine !" 

''You  mean  you'll  have  no  quarrel  with  me?  So 
much  the  better  then;  for,"  Charlotte  went  on  with 
a  higher  and  higher  flight,  "my  plan  is  completely 
formed." 

Maggie  waited — her  glimmer  had  deepened;  her 
chance  somehow  was  at  hand.  The  only  danger  was 
her  spoiling  it;  she  felt  herself  skirting  an  abyss. 
"What  then,  may  I  ask  is  your  plan?" 

It  hung  fire  but  ten  seconds;  it  came  out  sharp. 
"To  take  him  home — to  his  real  position.  And  not 
to  wait." 

"Do  you  mean — a — this  season?" 

"I  mean  immediately.  And — I  may  as  well  tell 
you  now — I  mean  for  my  own  time.  I  want,"  Char 
lotte  said,  "to  have  him  at  last  a  little  to  myself;  I 
want,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  you" — and  she  gave 
it  all  its  weight — "to  keep  the  man  I've  married. 
And  to  do  so,  I  see,  I  must  act." 

Maggie,  with  the  effort  still  to  follow  the  right 
line,  felt  herself  colour  to  the  eyes.  "Immediately?" 
she  thoughtfully  echoed. 

"As  soon  as  we  can  get  off.  The  removal  of  every 
thing  is,  after  all,  but  a  detail.  That  can  always  be 
done;  with  money,  as  he  spends  it,  everything  can. 
What  I  ask  for,"  Charlotte  declared,  "is  the  definite 
break.  And  I  wish  it  now."  With  which  her  head, 

325 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

like  her  voice  rose  higher.  "Oh,"  she  added,  "I  know 
my  difficulty!" 

Far  down  below  the  level  of  attention,  in  she 
could  scarce  have  said  what  sacred  depths,  Maggie's 
inspiration  had  come,  and  it  had  trembled  the  next 
moment  into  sound.  "Do  you  mean  I'm  your  dif 
ficulty?" 

"You  and  he  together — since  it's  always  with  you 
that  I've  had  to  see  him.  But  it's  a  difficulty  that 
I'm  facing,  if  you  wish  to  know;  that  I've  already 
faced;  that  I  propose  to  myself  to  surmount.  The 
struggle  with  it — none  too  pleasant — hasn't  been  for 
me,  as  you  may  imagine,  in  itself  charming;  I've  felt 
in  it  at  times,  if  I  must  tell  you  all,  too  great  and  too 
strange,  an  ugliness.  Yet  I  believe  it  may  succeed." 

She  had  risen,  with  this,  Mrs.  Verver,  and  had 
moved,  for  the  emphasis  of  it,  a  few  steps  away;  while 
Maggie,  motionless  at  first,  but  sat  and  looked  at 
her.  "You  want  to  take  my  father  from  me?" 

The  sharp,  successful,  almost  primitive  wail  in  it 
made  Charlotte  turn,  and  this  movement  attested 
for  the  Princess  the  felicity  of  her  deceit.  Something 
in  her  throbbed  as  it  had  throbbed  the  night  she 
stood  in  the  drawing-room  and  denied  that  she  had 
suffered.  She  was  ready  to  lie  again  if  her  companion 
would  but  give  her  the  opening.  Then  she  should 
know  she  had  done  all.  Charlotte  looked  at  her 
hard,  as  if  to  compare  her  face  with  her  note  of  re 
sentment;  and  Maggie,  feeling  this,  met  it  with  the 
signs  of  an  impression  that  might  pass  for  the  im 
pression  of  defeat.  "I  want  really  to  possess  him," 

326 


THE  PRINCESS 

said  Mrs.  Verver.     "I  happen  also  to  feel  that  he's 
worth  it." 

Maggie  rose  as  if  to  receive  her.  "Oh — worth  it!" 
she  wonderfully  threw  off. 

The  tone,  she  instantly  saw,  again  had  its  effect: 
Charlotte  flamed  aloft — might  truly  have  been  be 
lieving  in  her  passionate  parade.  "You've  thought 
you've  known  what  he's  worth  ?" 

"Indeed  then,  my  dear,  I  believe  I  have — as  I  be 
lieve  I  still  do." 

She  had  given  it,  Maggie,  straight  back,  and  again 
it  had  not  missed.  Charlotte,  for  another  moment, 
only  looked  at  her;  then  broke  into  the  words — Mag 
gie  had  known  they  would  come — of  which  she  had 
pressed  the  spring.  "How  I  see  that  you  loathed  our 
marriage!" 

"Do  you  ask  me?"  Maggie  after  an  instant  de 
manded. 

Charlotte  had  looked  about  her,  picked  up  the 
parasol  she  had  laid  on  a  bench,  possessed  herself 
mechanically  of  one  of  the  volumes  of  the  relegated 
novel  and  then,  more  consciously,  flung  it  down 
again:  she  was  in  presence,  visibly,  of  her  last  word. 
She  opened  her  sunshade  with  a  click;  she  twirled  it 
on  her  shoulder  in  her  pride.  "  'Ask'  you?  Do  I 
need?  How  I  see,"  she  broke  out,  "that  you've 
worked  against  me!' 

"Oh,  oh,  oh!"  the  Princess  exclaimed. 

Her  companion,  leaving  her,  had  reached  one  of 
the  archways,  but  on  this  turned  round  with  a  flare. 
"You  haven't  worked  against  me?" 

327 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

Maggie  took  it  and  for  a  moment  kept  it;  held  it, 
with  closed  eyes,  as  if  it  had  been  some  captured 
fluttering  bird  pressed  by  both  hands  to  her  breast. 
Then  she  opened  her  eyes  to  speak.  "What  does  it 
matter— if  I've  failed?" 

"You  recognise  then  that  you've  failed?"  asked 
Charlotte  from  the  threshold. 

Maggie  waited;  she  looked,  as  her  companion  had 
done  a  moment  before,  at  the  two  books  on  the  seat; 
she  put  them  together  and  laid  them  down;  then  she 
made  up  her  mind.  "I've  failed!"  she  sounded  out 
before  Charlotte,  having  given  her  time,  walked 
away.  She  watched  her,  splendid  and  erect,  float 
down  the  long  vista;  then  she  sank  upon  a  seat.  Yes, 
she  had  done  all. 


328 


PART  SIXTH. 


XL 

"I'LL  do  anything  you  like,"  she  said  to  her  husband 
on  one  of  the  last  days  of  the  month,  "if  our  being  here, 
this  way  at  this  time,  seems  to  you  too  absurd,  or  too 
uncomfortable,  or  too  impossible.  We'll  either  take 
leave  of  them  now,  without  waiting — or  we'll  come 
back  in  time,  three  days  before  they  start.  I'll  go 
abroad  with  you,  if  you  but  say  the  word;  to  Switzer 
land,  the  Tyrol,  the  Italian  Alps,  to  whichever  of  your 
old  high  places  you  would  like  most  to  see  again — 
those  beautiful  ones  that  used  to  do  you  good  after 
Rome  and  that  you  so  often  told  me  about." 

Where  they  were,  in  the  conditions  that  prompted 
this  offer,  and  where  it  might  indeed  appear  ridiculous 
that,  with  the  stale  London  September  close  at  hand, 
they  should  content  themselves  with  remaining,  was 
where  the  desert  of  Portland  Place  looked  blank  as  it 
had  never  looked,  and  where  a  drowsy  cabman,  scan 
ning  the  horizon  for  a  fare,  could  sink  to  oblivion  of 
the  risks  of  immobility.  But  Amerigo  was  of  the  odd 
opinion,  day  after  day,  that  their  situation  couldn't  be 
bettered ;  and  he  even  went  at  no  moment  through  the 
form  of  replying  that,  should  their  ordeal  strike  her  as 

329 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

exceeding  their  patience,  any  step  they  might  take 
would  be  for  her  own  relief.  This  was,  no  doubt, 
partly  because  he  stood  out  so  wonderfully,  to  the  end, 
against  admitting,  by  a  weak  word  at  least,  that  any 
element  of  their  existence  was,  or  ever  had  been,  an 
ordeal ;  no  trap  of  circumstance,  no  lapse  of  "form,"  no 
accident  of  irritation,  had  landed  him  in  that  inconse 
quence.  His  wife  might  verily  have  suggested  that  he 
was  consequent — consequent  with  the  admirable  ap 
pearance  he  had  from  the  first  so  undertaken,  and  so 
continued,  to  present — rather  too  rigidly  at  her  ex 
pense;  only,  as  it  happened,  she  was  not  the  little  per 
son  to  do  anything  of  the  sort,  and  the  strange  tacit 
compact  actually  in  operation  between  them  might 
have  been  founded  on  an  intelligent  comparison,  a  defi 
nite  collation  positively,  of  the  kinds  of  patience  proper 
to  each.  She  was  seeing  him  through — he  had  en 
gaged  to  come  out  at  the  right  end  if  she  would  see 
him :  this  understanding,  tacitly  renewed  from  week  to 
week,  had  fairly  received,  with  the  procession  of  the 
weeks,  the  consecration  of  time ;  but  it  scarce  needed  to 
be  insisted  on  that  she  was  seeing  him  on  his  terms, 
not  all  on  hers,  or  that,  in  other  words,  she  must  allow 
him  his  unexplained  and  uncharted,  his  one  practicably 
workable  way.  If  that  way,  by  one  of  the  intimate 
felicities  the  liability  to  which  was  so  far  from  having 
even  yet  completely  fallen  from  him,  happened  hand 
somely  to  show  him  as  more  bored  than  boring  (with 
advantages  of  his  own  freely  to  surrender,  but  none  to 
be  persuadedly  indebted  to  others  for,)  what  did  such 
a  false  face  of  the  matter  represent  but  the  fact  itself 

330 


THE   PRINCESS 

that  she  was  pledged?  If  she  had  questioned  or  chal 
lenged  or  interfered — if  she  had  reserved  herself  that 
right — she  wouldn't  have  been  pledged ;  whereas  there 
were  still,  and  evidently  would  be  yet  a  while,  long, 
tense  stretches  during  which  their  case  might  have  been 
hanging,  for  every  eye,  on  her  possible,  her  impossible 
defection.  She  must  keep  it  up  to  the  last,  mustn't 
absent  herself  for  three  minutes  from  her  post:  only 
on  those  lines,  assuredly,  would  she  show  herself  as 
with  him  and  not  against  him. 

It  was  extraordinary  how  scant  a  series  of  signs  she 
had  invited  him  to  make  of  being,  of  truly  having  been 
at  any  time,  "with"  his  wife:  that  reflection  she  was 
not  exempt  from  as  they  now,  in  their  suspense, 
supremely  waited — a  reflection  under  the  brush  of 
which  she  recognised  her  having  had,  in  respect  to  him 
as  well,  to  "do  all,"  to  go  the  whole  way  over,  to  move, 
indefatigably,  while  he  stood  as  fixed  in  his  place  as 
some  statue  of  one  of  his  forefathers.  The  meaning 
of  it  would  seem  to  be,  she  reasoned  in  sequestered 
hours,  that  he  had  a  place,  and  that  this  was  an  attribute 
somehow  indefeasible,  unquenchable,  which  laid  upon 
others — from  the  moment  they  definitely  wanted  any 
thing  of  him — the  necessity  of  taking  more  of  the  steps 
that  he  could,  of  circling  round  him,  of  remembering 
for  his  benefit  the  famous  relation  of  the  mountain  to 
Mahomet.  It  was  strange,  if  one  had  gone  into  it,  but 
such  a  place  as  Amerigo's  was  like  something  made  for 
him  beforehand  by  innumerable  facts,  facts  largely  of 
the  sort  known  as  historical,  made  by  ancestors,  ex 
amples,  traditions,  habits;  while  Maggie's  own  had 

331 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

come  to  show  simply  as  that  improvised  "post" — a  post 
of  the  kind  spoken  of  as  advanced — with  which  she 
was  to  have  found  herself  connected  in  the  fashion  of 
a  settler  or  a  trader  in  a  new  country ;  in  the  likeness 
even  of  some  Indian  squaw  with  a  papoose  on  her  back 
and  barbarous  bead-work  to  sell.  Maggie's  own,  in 
short,  would  have  been  sought  in  vain  in  the  most  rudi 
mentary  map  of  the  social  relations  as  such.  The  only 
geography  marking  it  would  be  doubtless  that  of  the 
fundamental  passions.  The  "end"  that  the  Prince  was 
at  all  events  holding  out  for  was  represented  to  expec 
tation  by  his  father-in-law's  announced  departure  for 
America  with  Mrs.  Verver;  just  as  that  prospective 
event  had  originally  figured  as  advising,  for  discretion, 
the  flight  of  the  younger  couple,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
withdrawal  of  whatever  other  importunate  company, 
before  the  great  upheaval  of  Fawns.  This  residence 
was  to  be  peopled  for  a  month  by  porters,  packers  and 
hammerers,  at  whose  operations  it  had  become  pecu 
liarly  public — public  that  is  for  Portland  Place — that 
Charlotte  was  to  preside  in  force;  operations  the  quite 
awful  appointed  scale  and  style  of  which  had  at  no 
moment  loomed  so  large  to  Maggie's  mind  as  one  day 
when  the  dear  Assinghams  swam  back  into  her  ken 
besprinkled  with  sawdust  and  looking  as  pale  as  if  they 
had  seen  Samson  pull  down  the  temple.  They  had 
seen  at  least  what  she  was  not  seeing,  rich  dim  things 
under  the  impression  of  which  they  had  retired;  she 
having  eyes  at  present  but  for  the  clock  by  which  she 
timed  her  husband,  or  for  the  glass — the  image  per 
haps  would  be  truer — in  which  he  was  reflected  to  her 

332 


THE  PRINCESS 

as  he  timed  the  pair  in  the  country.  The  accession  of 
their  friends  from  Cadogan  Place  contributed  to  all 
their  intermissions,  at  any  rate,  a  certain  effect  of  res 
onance;  an  effect  especially  marked  by  the  upshot  of 
a  prompt  exchange  of  inquiries  between  Mrs.  Assing- 
ham  and  the  Princess.  It  was  noted,  on  the  occasion 
of  that  anxious  lady's  last  approach  to  her  young  friend 
at  Fawns,  that  her  sympathy  had  ventured,  after  much 
accepted  privation,  again  to  become  inquisitive,  and  it 
had  perhaps  never  so  yielded  to  that  need  as  on  this 
question  of  the  present  odd  "line"  of  the  distinguished 
eccentrics. 

"You  mean  to  say  really  that  you're  going  to  stick 
here?"  And  then  before  Maggie  could  answer: 
"What  on  earth  will  you  do  with  your  even- 
ings?" 

Maggie  waited  a  moment — Maggie  could  still  ten 
tatively  smile.  "When  people  learn  we're  here — and 
of  course  the  papers  will  be  full  of  it! — they'll  flock 
back  in  their  hundreds,  from  wherever  they  are,  to 
catch  us.  You  see  you  and  the  Colonel  have  your 
selves  done  it.  As  for  our  evenings,  they  won't,  I 
dare  say,  be  particularly  different  from  anything  else 
that's  ours.  They  won't  be  different  from  our  morn 
ings  or  our  afternoons — except  perhaps  that  you  two 
dears  will  sometimes  help  us  to  get  through  them. 
I've  offered  to  go  anywhere,"  she  added;  "to  take  a 
house  if  he  will.  But  this — just  this  and  nothing  else 
— is  Amerigo's  idea.  He  gave  it  yesterday,"  she  went 
on,  "a  name  that,  as  he  said,  described  and  fitted  it. 
So  you  see" — and  the  Princess  indulged  again  in  her 

333 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

smile  that  didn't  play,  but  that  only,  as  might  have 
been  said,  worked — "so  you  see  there's  a  method  in 
our  madness." 

It  drew  Mrs.  Assingham's  wonder.  "And  what 
then  is  the  name?" 

1  'The  reduction  to  its  simplest  expression  of  what 
we  are  doing' — that's  what  he  called  it.  Therefore  as 
we're  doing  nothing,  we're  doing  it  in  the  most  aggra 
vated  way — which  is  the  way  he  desires."  With 
which  Maggie  further  said :  "Of  course  I  under 
stand." 

"So  do  I!"  her  visitor  after  a  moment  breathed. 
"You've  had  to  vacate  the  house — that  was  inevitable. 
But  at  least  here  he  doesn't  funk." 

Our  young  woman  accepted  the  expression.  "He 
doesn't  funk." 

It  only,  however,  half  contented  Fanny,  who 
thoughtfully  raised  her  eyebrows.  "He's  prodigious; 
but  what  is  there — as  you've  'fixed'  it — to  dodge? 
Unless,"  she  pursued,  "it's  her  getting  near  him;  it's 
— if  you'll  pardon  my  vulgarity — her  getting  at  him. 
That,"  she  suggested,  "may  count  with  him." 

But  it  found  the  Princess  prepared.  "She  can  get 
near  him  here.  She  can  get  'at'  him.  She  can  come 
up." 

"Can  she  ?"  Fanny  Assingham  questioned. 

"Can't  she?"  Maggie  returned. 

Their  eyes,  for  a  minute,  intimately  met  on  it ;  after 
which  the  elder  woman  said :  "I  mean  for  seeing  him 
alone." 

"So  do  I,"  said  the  Princess. 
334 


THE  PRINCESS 

At  which  Fanny,  for  her  reasons,  couldn't  help  smil 
ing.  "Oh,  if  it's  for  that  he's  staying !" 

"He's  staying — I've  made  it  out — to  take  anything 
that  comes  or  calls  upon  him.  To  take,"  Maggie  went 
on,  "even  that."  Then  she  put  it  as  she  had  at  last 
put  it  to  herself.  "He's  staying  for  high  decency." 

"Decency?"  Mrs.  Assingham  gravely  echoed. 

"Decency.     If  she  should  try !" 

"Well ?"  Mrs.  Assingham  urged. 

"Well,  I  hope !" 

"Hope  he'll  see  her?" 

Maggie  hesitated,  however;  she  made  no  direct  re 
ply.  "It's  useless  hoping,"  she  presently  said.  "She 
won't.  But  he  ought  to."  Her  friend's  expression  of 
a  moment  before,  which  had  been  apologised  for  as 
vulgar,  prolonged  its  sharpness  to  her  ear — that  of  an 
electric  bell  under  continued  pressure.  Stated  so 
simply,  what  was  it  but  dreadful,  truly,  that  the  feasi 
bility  of  Charlotte's  "getting  at"  the  man  who  for  so 
long  had  loved  her  should  now  be  in  question? 
Strangest  of  all  things,  doubtless,  this  care  of  Mag 
gie's  as  to  what  might  make  for  it  or  make  against  it ; 
stranger  still  her  fairly  lapsing  at  moments  into  a 
vague  calculation  of  the  conceivability,  on  her  own 
part,  with  her  husband,  of  some  direct  sounding  of  the 
subject.  Would  it  be  too  monstrous,  her  suddenly 
breaking  out  to  him  as  in  alarm  at  the  lapse  of  the 
weeks :  "Wouldn't  it  really  seem  that  you're  bound  in 
honour  to  do  something  for  her,  privately,  before  they 
go  ?"  Maggie  was  capable  of  weighing  the  risk  of  this 
adventure  for  her  own  spirit,  capable  of  sinking  to 

335 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

intense  little  absences,  even  while  conversing,  as  now, 
with  the  person  who  had  most  of  her  confidence, 
during  which  she  followed  up  the  possibilities.  It  was 
true  that  Mrs.  Assingham  could  at  such  times  some 
what  restore  the  balance  by  not  wholly  failing  to  guess 
her  thought.  Her  thought,  however,  just  at  present, 
had  more  than  one  face — had  a  series  that  it  succes 
sively  presented.  These  were  indeed  the  possibilities 
involved  in  the  adventure  of  her  concerning  herself  for 
the  quantity  of  compensation  that  Mrs.  Verver  might 
still  look  to.  There  was  always  the  possibility  that  she 
was,  after  all,  sufficiently  to  get  at  him — there  was  in 
fact  that  of  her  having  again  and  again  done  so. 
Against  this  stood  nothing  but  Fanny  Assingham's  ap 
parent  belief  in  her  privation — more  mercilessly  im 
posed,  or  more  hopelessly  felt,  in  the  actual  relation  of 
the  parties;  over  and  beyond  everything  that,  from 
more  than  three  months  back,  of  course,  had  fostered 
in  the  Princess  a  like  conviction.  These  assumptions 
might  certainly  be  baseless — inasmuch  as  there  were 
hours  and  hours  of  Amerigo's  time  that  there  was  no 
habit,  no  pretence  of  his  accounting  for ;  inasmuch  too 
as  Charlotte,  inevitably,  had  had  more  than  once,  to 
the  undisguised  knowledge  of  the  pair  in  Portland 
Place,  been  obliged  to  come  up  to  Eaton  Square, 
whence  so  many  of  her  personal  possessions  were  in 
course  of  removal.  She  didn't  come  to  Portland  Place 
— didn't  even  come  to  ask  for  luncheon  on  two  sepa 
rate  occasions  when  it  reached  the  consciousness  of  the 
household  there  that  she  was  spending  the  day  in  Lon 
don.  Maggie  hated,  she  scorned,  to  compare  hours 

336 


THE  PRINCESS 

and  appearances,  to  weigh  the  idea  of  whether  there 
hadn't  been  moments,  during  these  days,  when  an  as 
signation,  in  easy  conditions,  a  snatched  interview,  in 
an  air  the  season  had  so  cleared  of  prying  eyes, 
mightn't  perfectly  work.  But  the  very  reason  of  this 
was  partly  that,  haunted  with  the  vision  of  the  poor 
woman  carrying  off  with  such  bravery  as  she  found  to 
her  hand  the  secret  of  her  not  being  appeased,  she  was 
conscious  of  scant  room  for  any  alternative  image. 
The  alternative  image  would  have  been  that  the  secret 
covered  up  was  the  secret  of  appeasement  somehow 
obtained,  somehow  extorted  and  cherished;  and  the  dif 
ference  between  the  two  kinds  of  hiding  was  too  great 
to  permit  of  a  mistake.  Charlotte  was  hiding  neither 
pride  nor  joy — she  was  hiding  humiliation;  and  here  it 
was  that  the  Princess's  passion,  so  powerless  for  vin-r 
dictive  flights,  most  inveterately  bruised  its  tender 
ness  against  the  hard  glass  of  her  question. 

Behind  the  glass  lurked  the  whole  history  of  the  re 
lation  she  had  so  fairly  flattened  her  nose  against  it  to 
penetrate — the  glass  Mrs.  Verver  might,  at  this  stage, 
have  been  frantically  tapping,  from  within,  by  way  of 
supreme,  irrepressible  entreaty.  Maggie  had  said  to 
herself  complacently,  after  that  last  passage  with  her 
stepmother  in  the  garden  of  Fawns,  that  there  was 
nothing  left  for  her  to  do  and  that  she  could  thereupon 
fold  her  hands.  But  why  wasn't  it  still  left  to  push 
further  and,  from  the  point  of  view  of  personal  pride, 
grovel  lower? — why  wasn't  it  still  left  to  offer  herself 
as  the  bearer  of  a  message  reporting  to  him  their 
friend's  anguish  and  convincing  him  of  her  need? 

VOL.  II.— 2a  337 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

She  could  thus  have  translated  Mrs.  Verver's  tap 
against  .the  glass,  as  I  have  called  it,  into  fifty  forms ; 
could  perhaps  have  translated  it  most  into  the  form  of 
a  reminder  that  would  pierce  deep.  "You  don't  know 
what  it  is  to  have  been  loved  and  broken  with.  You 
haven't  been  broken  with,  because  in  your  relation  what 
can  there  have  been,  worth  speaking  of,  to  break? 
Ours  was  everything  a  relation  could  be,  filled  to  the 
brim  with  the  wine  of  consciousness ;  and  if  it  was  to 
have  no  meaning,  no  better  meaning  than  that  such  a 
creature  as  you  could  breathe  upon  it,  at  your  hour, 
for  blight,  why  was  I  myself  dealt  with  all  for  decep 
tion?  why  condemned  after  a  couple  of  short  years  to 
find  the  golden  flame — oh,  the  golden  flame! — a  mere 
handful  of  black  ashes?"  Our  young  woman  so 
yielded,  at  moments,  to  what  was  insidious  in  these 
foredoomed  ingenuities  of  her  pity,  that  for  minutes 
together,  sometimes,  the  weight  of  a  new  duty  seemed 
to  rest  upon  her — the  duty  of  speaking  before  separa 
tion  should  constitute  its  chasm,  of  pleading  for  some 
benefit  that  might  be  carried  away  into  exile  like  the 
last  saved  object  of  price  of  the  emigre,  the  jewel 
wrapped  in  a  piece  of  old  silk  and  negotiable  some  day 
in  the  market  of  misery. 

This  imagined  service  to  the  woman  who  could  no 
longer  help  herself  was  one  of  the  traps  set  for  Mag 
gie's  spirit  at  every  turn  of  the  road ;  the  click  of  which, 
catching  and  holding  the  divine  faculty  fast,  was  fol 
lowed  inevitably  by  a  flutter,  by  a  struggle  of  wings 
and  even,  as  we  may  say,  by  a  scattering  of  fine  feath 
ers.  For  they  promptly  enough  felt,  these  yearnings 

338 


THE  PRINCESS 

of  thought  and  excursions  of  sympathy,  the  concus 
sion  that  couldn't  bring  them  down — the  arrest  pro 
duced  by  the  so  remarkably  distinct  figure  that,  at 
Fawns,  for  the  previous  weeks,  was  constantly  cross 
ing,  in  its  regular  revolution,  the  further  end  of  any 
watched  perspective.  Whoever  knew,  or  whoever 
didn't,  whether  or  to  what  extent  Charlotte,  with 
natural  business  in  Eaton  Square,  had  shuffled  other 
opportunities  under  that  cloak,  it  was  all  matter  for  the 
kind  of  quiet  ponderation  the  little  man  who  so  kept 
his  wandering  way  had  made  his  own.  It  was  part  of 
the  very  inveteracy  of  his  straw  hat  and  his  white 
waistcoat,  of  the  trick  of  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  of 
the  detachment  of  the  attention  he  fixed  on  his  slow 
steps  from  behind  his  secure  pince-nez.  The  thing 
that  never  failed  now  as  an  item  in  the  picture  was 
that  gleam  of  the  silken  noose,  his  wife's  immaterial 
tether,  so  marked  to  Maggie's  sense  during  her  last 
month  in  the  country.  Mrs.  Verver's  straight  neck 
had  certainly  not  slipped  it ;  nor  had  the  other  end  of 
the  long  cord — oh,  quite  conveniently  long! — disen 
gaged  its  smaller  loop  from  the  hooked  thumb  that, 
with  his  fingers  closed  upon  it,  her  husband  kept  out  of 
sight.  To  have  recognised,  for  all  its  tenuity,  the  play 
of  this  gathered  lasso  might  inevitably  be  to  wonder 
with  what  magic  it  was  twisted,  to  what  tension  sub 
jected,  but  could  never  be  to  doubt  either  of  its  ade 
quacy  to  its  office  or  of  its  perfect  durability.  These 
reminded  states  for  the  Princess  were  in  fact  states  of 
renewed  gaping.  So  many  things  her  father  knew 
that  she  even  yet  didn't ! 

339 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

All  this,  at  present,  with  Mrs.  Assingham,  passed 
through  her  in  quick  vibrations.  She  had  expressed, 
while  the  revolution  of  her  thought  was  incomplete, 
the  idea  of  what  Amerigo  "ought,"  on  his  side,  in  the 
premises,  to  be  capable  of,  and  then  had  felt  her  com 
panion's  answering  stare.  But  she  insisted  on  what 
she  had  meant.  "He  ought  to  wish  to  see  her — and 
I  mean  in  some  protected  and  independent  way,  as  he 
used  to — in  case  of  her  being  herself  able  to  manage 
it.  That,"  said  Maggie  with  the  courage  of  her  con 
viction,  "he  ought  to  be  ready,  he  ought  to  be  happy, 
he  ought  to  feel  himself  sworn — little  as  it  is  for  the 
end  of  such  a  history! — to  take  from  her.  It's  as  if 
he  wished  to  get  off  without  taking  anything." 

Mrs.  Assingham  deferentially  mused.  "But  for 
what  purpose  is  it  your  idea  that  they  should  again  so 
intimately  meet?" 

"For  any  purpose  they  like.     That's  their  affair." 

Fanny  Assingham  sharply  laughed,  then  irrepres- 
sibly  fell  back  to  her  constant  position.  "You're 
splendid — perfectly  splendid."  To  which,  as  the 
Princess,  shaking  an  impatient  head,  wouldn't  have 
it  again  at  all,  she  subjoined:  "Or  if  you're  not  it's 
because  you're  so  sure.  I  mean  sure  of  him." 

"Ah,  I'm  exactly  not  sure  of  him.  If  I  were  sure 

of  him  I  shouldn't  doubt !"  But  Maggie  cast 

about  her. 

"Doubt  what?"  Fanny  pressed  as  she  waited. 

"Well,  that  he  must  feel  how  much  less  than  she  he 
pays — and  how  that  ought  to  keep  her  present  to  him." 

This,  in  its  turn,  after  an  instant,  Mrs.  Assingham 
340 


could  meet  with  a  smile.  "Trust  him,  my  dear,  to 
keep  her  present !  But  trust  him  also  to  keep  himself 
absent.  Leave  him  his  own  way." 

"I'll  leave  him  everything,"  said  Maggie.  "Only 
— you  know  it's  my  nature — I  think." 

"It's  your  nature  to  think  too  much,"  Fanny  Assing- 
ham  a  trifle  coarsely  risked. 

This  but  quickened,  however,  in  the  Princess  the  act 
she  reprobated.  "That  may  be.  But  if  I  hadn't 
thought !" 

"You  wouldn't,  you  mean,  have  been  where  you 
are?" 

"Yes,  because  they,  on  their  side,  thought  of  every 
thing  but  that.  They  thought  of  everything  but  that 
I  might  think." 

"Or  even,"  her  friend  too  superficially  concurred, 
"that  your  father  might !" 

As  to  this,  at  all  events,  Maggie  discriminated. 
"No,  that  wouldn't  have  prevented  them ;  for  they  knew 
that  his  first  care  would  be  not  to  make  me  do  so.  As 
it  is,"  Maggie  added,  "that  has  had  to  become  his 
last." 

Fanny  Assingham  took  it  in  deeper — for  what  it  im 
mediately  made  her  give  out  louder.  "He's  splendid 
then."  She  sounded  it  almost  aggressively;  it  was 
what  she  was  reduced  to — she  had  positively  to  place  it. 

"Ah,  that  as  much  as  you  please!" 

Maggie  said  this  and  left  it,  but  the  tone  of  it  had 
the  next  moment  determined  in  her  friend  a  fresh  re 
action.  "You  think,  both  of  you,  so  abysmally  and  yet 
so  quietly.  But  it's  what  will  have  saved  you." 

34i 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"Oh,"  Maggie  returned,  "it's  what — from  the  mo 
ment  they  discovered  we  could  think  at  all — will  have 
saved  them.  For  they're  the  ones  who  are  saved,"  she 
went  on.  "We're  the  ones  who  are  lost." 

"Lost ?" 

"Lost  to  each  other — father  and  I."  And  then  as 
her  friend  appeared  to  demur,  "Oh  yes,"  Maggie  quite 
lucidly  declared,  "lost  to  each  other  much  more,  really, 
than  Amerigo  and  Charlotte  are;  since  for  them  it's 
just,  it's  right,  it's  deserved,  while  for  us  it's  only  sad 
and  strange  and  not  caused  by  our  fault.  But  I  don't 
know,"  she  went  on,  "why  I  talk  about  myself,  for  it's 
on  father  it  really  comes.  I  let  him  go,"  said  Maggie. 

"You  let  him,  but  you  don't  make  him." 

"I  take  it  from  him,"  she  answered. 

"But  what  else  can  you  do?" 

"I  take  it  from  him,"  the  Princess  repeated.  "I  do 
what  I  knew  from  the  first  I  should  do.  I  get  off  by 
giving  him  up." 

"But  if  he  gives  you?"  Mrs.  Assingham  presumed 
to  object.  "Doesn't  it  moreover  then,"  she  asked, 
"complete  the  very  purpose  with  which  he  married — 
that  of  making  you  and  leaving  you  more  free?" 

Maggie  looked  at  her  long.  "Yes — I  help  him  to 
do  that." 

Mrs.  Assingham  hesitated,  but  at  last  her  bravery 
flared.  "Why  not  call  it  then  frankly  his  complete 
success  ?" 

"Well,"  said  Maggie,  "that's  all  that's  left  me  to  do." 

"It's  a  success,"  her  friend  ingeniously  developed, 
"with  which  you've  simply  not  interfered."  And  as 

342 


THE  PRINCESS 

if  to  show  that  she  spoke  without  levity  Mrs.  Assing- 
ham  went  further.  "He  has  made  it  a  success  for 
them /" 

"Ah,  there  you  are!"  Maggie  responsively  mused. 
"Yes,"  she  said  the  next  moment,  "that's  why  Amerigo 
stays." 

"Let  alone  that  it's  why  Charlotte  goes."  And 
Mrs.  Assingham,  emboldened,  smiled  "So  he 
knows ?" 

But  Maggie  hung  back.  "Amerigo ?"  After 

which,  however,  she  blushed — to  her  companion's  rec 
ognition. 

"Your  father.  He  knows  what  you  know?  I 
mean,"  Fanny  faltered — "well,  how  much  does  he 
know?"  Maggie's  silence  and  Maggie's  eyes  had  in 
fact  arrested  the  push  of  the  question — which,  for  a 
decent  consistency,  she  couldn't  yet  quite  abandon. 
"What  I  should  rather  say  is  does  he  know  how 
much?"  She  found  it  still  awkward.  "How  much, 
I  mean,  they  did.  How  far" — she  touched  it  up — 
"they  went." 

Maggie  had  waited,  but  only  with  a  question.  "Do 
you  think  he  does?" 

"Know  at  least  something?  Oh,  about  him  I  can't 
think.  He's  beyond  me,"  said  Fanny  Assingham. 

"Then  do  you  yourself  know  ?" 

"How  much ?" 

"How  much." 

"How  far ?" 

"How  far." 

Fanny  had  appeared  to  wish  to  make  sure,  but  there 
343 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

was  something  she  remembered — remembered  in  time 
and  even  with  a  smile.  "I've  told  you  before  that  I 
know  absolutely  nothing." 

"Well — that's  what  /  know,"  said  the  Princess. 

Her  friend  again  hesitated.  "Then  nobody 

knows ?  I  mean,"  Mrs.  Assingham  explained, 

"how  much  your  father  does." 

Oh,  Maggie  showed  that  she  understood.  "No 
body." 

"Not— a  little— Charlotte?" 

"A  little?"  the  Princess  echoed.  "To  know  any 
thing  would  be,  for  her,  to  know  enough." 

"And  she  doesn't  know  anything?" 

"If  she  did,"  Maggie  answered,  "Amerigo  would." 

"And  that's  just  it — that  he  doesn't?" 

"That's  just  it,"  said  the  Princess  profoundly. 

On  which  Mrs.  Assingham  reflected.  "Then  how 
is  Charlotte  so  held  ?" 

"Just  by  that." 

"By  her  ignorance?" 

"By  her  ignorance." 

Fanny  wondered.     "A  torment ?" 

"A  torment,"  said  Maggie  with  tears  in  her  eyes. 

Her  companion  a  moment  watched  them.  "But  the 
Prince  then ?" 

"How  is  he  held?"  Maggie  asked. 

"How  is  /^held?" 

"Oh,  I  can't  tell  you  that !"  And  the  Princess  again 
broke  off. 


344 


XLI 

A  TELEGRAM,  in  Charlotte's  name,  arrived  early — 
"We  shall  come  and  ask  you  for  tea  at  five,  if  con 
venient  to  you.  Am  wiring  for  the  Assinghams  to 
lunch."  This  document,  into  which  meanings  were 
to  be  read,  Maggie  promptly  placed  before  her  hus 
band,  adding  the  remark  that  her  father  and  his  wife, 
who  would  have  come  up  the  previous  night  or  that 
morning,  had  evidently  gone  to  an  hotel. 

The  Prince  was  in  his  "own"  room,  where  he  often 
sat  now  alone;  half-a-dozen  open  newspapers,  the 
"Figaro"  notably,  as  well  as  the  "Times,"  were  scat 
tered  about  him ;  but,  with  a  cigar  in  his  teeth  and  a 
visible  cloud  on  his  brow,  he  appeared  actually  to  be 
engaged  in  walking  to  and  fro.  Never  yet,  on  thus 
approaching  him — for  she  had  done  it  of  late,  under 
one  necessity  or  another,  several  times — had  a  par 
ticular  impression  so  greeted  her;  supremely  strong, 
for  some  reason,  as  he  turned  quickly  round  on  her  en 
trance.  The  reason  was  partly  the  look  in  his  face — 
a  suffusion  like  the  flush  of  fever,  which  brought  back 
to  her  Fanny  Assingham's  charge,  recently  uttered 
under  that  roof,  of  her  "thinking"  too  impenetrably. 
The  word  had  remained  with  her  and  made  her  think 
still  more;  so  that,  at  first,  as  she  stood  there,  she  felt 

345 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

responsible  for  provoking  on  his  part  an  irritation  of 
suspense  at  which  she  had  not  aimed.  She  had  been 
going  about  him  these  three  months,  she  perfectly 
knew,  with  a  maintained  idea — of  which  she  had  never 
spoken  to  him ;  but  what  had  at  last  happened  was  that 
his  way  of  looking  at  her,  on  occasion,  seemed  a  per 
ception  of  the  presence  not  of  one  idea,  but  of  fifty, 
variously  prepared  for  uses  with  which  he  somehow 
must  reckon.  She  knew  herself  suddenly,  almost 
strangely,  glad  to  be  coming  to  him,  at  this  hour,  with 
nothing  more  abstract  than  a  telegram;  but  even  after 
she  had  stepped  into  his  prison  under  her  pretext, 
while  her  eyes  took  in  his  face  and  then  embraced  the 
four  walls  that  enclosed  his  restlessness,  she  recognised 
the  virtual  identity  of  his  condition  with  that  aspect  of 
Charlotte's  situation  for  which,  early  in  the  summer 
and  in  all  the  amplitude  of  a  great  residence,  she  had 
found,  with  so  little  seeking,  the  similitude  of  the 
locked  cage.  He  struck  her  as  caged,  the  man  who 
couldn't  now  without  an  instant  effect  on  her  sensibil 
ity  give  an  instinctive  push  to  the  door  she  had  not 
completely  closed  behind  her.  He  had  been  turning 
twenty  ways,  for  impatiences  all  his  own,  and  when 
she  was  once  shut  in  with  him  it  was  yet  again  as  if 
she  had  come  to  him  in  his  more  than  monastic  cell 
to  offer  him  light  or  food.  There  was  a  difference 
none  the  less,  between  his  captivity  and  Charlotte's — 
the  difference,  as  it  might  be,  of  his  lurking  there  by 
his  own  act  and  his  own  choice ;  the  admission  of  which 
had  indeed  virtually  been  in  his  starting,  on  her  en 
trance,  as  if  even  this  were  in  its  degree  an  interference. 

346 


THE   PRINCESS 

That  was  what  betrayed  for  her,  practically,  his  fear 
of  her  fifty  ideas,  and  what  had  begun,  after  a  min 
ute,  to  make  her  wish  to  repudiate  or  explain.  It  was 
more  wonderful  than  she  could  have  told;  it  was  for 
all  the  world  as  if  she  was  succeeding  with  him  beyond 
her  intention.  She  had,  for  these  instants,  the  sense 
that  he  exaggerated,  that  the  imputation  of  purpose 
had  fairly  risen  too  high  in  him.  She  had  begun,  a 
year  ago,  by  asking  herself  how  she  could  make  him 
think  more  of  her;  but  what  was  it,  after  all,  he  was 
thinking  now  ?  He  kept  his  eyes  on  her  telegram ;  he 
read  it  more  than  once,  easy  as  it  was,  in  spite  of  its 
conveyed  deprecation,  to  understand;  during  which 
she  found  herself  almost  awestruck  with  yearning, 
almost  on  the  point  of  marking  somehow  what  she  had 
marked  in  the  garden  at  Fawns  with  Charlotte — that 
she  had  truly  come  unarmed.  She  didn't  bristle  with 
intentions — she  scarce  knew,  as  he  at  this  juncture 
affected  her,  what  had  become  of  the  only  intention 
she  had  come  with.  She  had  nothing  but  her  old  idea, 
the  old  one  he  knew;  she  hadn't  the  ghost  of  another. 
Presently  in  fact,  when  four  or  five  minutes  had 
elapsed,  it  was  as  if  she  positively  hadn't  so  much  even 
as  that  one.  He  gave  her  back  her  paper,  asking  with 
it  if  there  were  anything  in  particular  she  wished  him 
to  do. 

She  stood  there  with  her  eyes  on  him,  doubling  the 
telegram  together  as  if  it  had  been  a  precious  thing 
and  yet  all  the  while  holding  her  breath.  Of  a  sudden, 
somehow,  and  quite  as  by  the  action  of  their  merely 
having  between  them  these  few  written  words,  an 

347 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

extraordinary  fact  came  up.  He  was  with  her  as  if 
he  were  hers,  hers  in  a  degree  and  on  a  scale,  with  an 
intensity  and  an  intimacy,  that  were  a  new  and  a 
strange  quantity,  that  were  like  the  irruption  of  a  tide 
loosening  them  where  they  had  stuck  and  making  them 
feel  they  floated.  What  was  it  that,  with  the  rush  of 
this,  just  kept  her  from  putting  out  her  hands  to  him, 
from  catching  at  him  as,  in  the  other  time,  with  the 
superficial  impetus  he  and  Charlotte  had  privately  con 
spired  to  impart,  she  had  so  often,  her  breath  failing 
her,  known  the  impulse  to  catch  at  her  father?  She 
did,  however,  just  yet,  nothing  inconsequent — though 
she  couldn't  immediately  have  said  what  saved  her; 
and  by  the  time  she  had  neatly  folded  her  telegram 
she  was  doing  something  merely  needful.  "I  wanted 
you  simply  to  know — so  that  you  mayn't  by  accident 
miss  them.  For  it's  the  last,"  said  Maggie. 

"The  last?" 

"I  take  it  as  their  good-bye."  And  she  smiled  as 
she  could  always  smile.  "They  come  in  state — to  take 
formal  leave.  They  do  everything  that's  proper.  To 
morrow,"  she  said,  "they  go  to  Southampton." 

"If  they  do  everything  that's  proper,"  the  Prince 
presently  asked,  "why  don't  they  at  least  come  to  dine?" 

She  hesitated,  yet  she  lightly  enough  provided  her 
answer.  "That  we  must  certainly  ask  them.  It  will 
be  easy  for  you.  But  of  course  they're  immensely 
taken !" 

He  wondered.  "So  immensely  taken  that  they  can't 
— that  your  father  can't — give  you  his  last  evening  in 
England?" 

348 


THE   PRINCESS 

This,  for  Maggie,  was  more  difficult  to  meet ;  yet  she 
was  still  not  without  her  stop-gap.  "That  may  be 
what  they'll  propose — that  we  shall  go  somewhere 
together,  the  four  of  us,  for  a  celebration — except  that, 
to  round  it  thoroughly  off,  we  ought  also  to  have  Fanny 
and  the  Colonel.  They  don't  want  them  at  tea,  she 
quite  sufficiently  expresses;  they  polish  them  off,  poor 
dears,  they  get  rid  of  them,  beforehand.  They  want 
only  us  together;  and  if  they  cut  us  down  to  tea,"  she 
continued,  "as  they  cut  Fanny  and  the  Colonel  down 
to  luncheon,  perhaps  it's  for  the  fancy,  after  all,  of  their 
keeping  their  last  night  in  London  for  each  other." 

She  said  these  things  as  they  came  to  her ;  she  was 
unable  to  keep  them  back,  even  though,  as  she  heard 
herself,  she  might  have  been  throwing  everything  to 
the  winds.  But  wasn't  that  the  right  way — for  shar 
ing  his  last  day  of  captivity  with  the  man  one  adored  ? 
It  was  every  moment  more  and  more  for  her  as  if  she 
were  waiting  with  him  in  his  prison — waiting  with 
some  gleam  of  remembrance  of  how  noble  captives  in 
the  French  Revolution,  the  darkness  of  the  Terror, 
used  to  make  a  feast,  or  a  high  discourse,  of  their  last 
poor  resources.  If  she  had  broken  with  everything 
now,  every  observance  of  all  the  past  months,  she  must 
simply  then  take  it  so — take  it  that  what  she  had 
worked  for  was  too  near,  at  last,  to  let  her  keep  her 
head.  She  might  have  been  losing  her  head  verily  in 
her  husband's  eyes — since  he  didn't  know,  all  the  while, 
that  the  sudden  freedom  of  her  words  was  but  the 
diverted  intensity  of  her  disposition  personally  to  seize 
him.  He  didn't  know,  either,  that  this  was  her  man- 

349 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

ner — now  she  was  with  him — of  beguiling  audaciously 
the  supremacy  of  suspense.  For  the  people  of  the 
French  Revolution,  assuredly,  there  wasn't  suspense; 
the  scaffold,  for  those  she  was  thinking  of,  was  cer 
tain — whereas  what  Charlotte's  telegram  announced 
was,  short  of  some  incalculable  error,  clear  liberation. 
Just  the  point,  however,  was  in  its  being  clearer  to  her 
self  than  to  him ;  her  clearnesses,  clearances — those  she 
had  so  all  but  abjectly  laboured  for — threatened  to 
crowd  upon  her  in  the  form  of  one  of  the  clusters  of 
angelic  heads,  the  peopled  shafts  of  light  beating  down 
through  iron  bars,  that  regale,  on  occasion,  precisely, 
the  fevered  vision  of  those  who  are  in  chains.  She  was 
going  to  know,  she  felt,  later  on — was  going  to  know 
with  compunction,  doubtless,  on  the  very  morrow,  how 
thumpingly  her  heart  had  beaten  at  this  foretaste  of 
their  being  left  together:  she  should  judge  at  leisure 
the  surrender  she  was  making  to  the  consciousness  of 
complications  about  to  be  bodily  lifted.  She  should 
judge  at  leisure  even  that  avidity  for  an  issue  which 
was  making  so  little  of  any  complication  but  the  un- 
extinguished  presence  of  the  others;  and  indeed  that 
she  was  already  simplifying  so  much  more  than  her 
husband  came  out  for  her  next  in  the  face  with  which 
he  listened.  He  might  certainly  well  be  puzzled,  in  re 
spect  to  his  father-in-law  and  Mrs.  Verver,  by  hef 
glance  at  their  possible  preference  for  a  concentrated 
evening.  "But  it  isn't — is  it?"  he  asked — "as  if  they 
were  leaving  each  other  ?" 

"Oh  no ;  it  isn't  as  if  they  were  leaving  each  other. 
They're  only  bringing  to  a  close — without  knowing 

350 


THE  PRINCESS 

when  it  may  open  again — a  time  that  has  been,  natur 
ally,  awfully  interesting  to  them."  Yes,  she  could 
talk  so  of  their  "time" — she  was  somehow  sustained; 
she  was  sustained  even  to  affirm  more  intensely  her 
present  possession  of  her  ground.  "They  have  their 
reasons — many  things  to  think  of;  how  can  one  tell? 
But  there's  always,  also,  the  chance  of  his  proposing  to 
me  that  we  shall  have  our  last  hours  together ;  I  mean 
that  he  and  I  shall.  He  may  wish  to  take  me  off  to 
dine  with  him  somewhere  alone — and  to  do  it  in 
memory  of  old  days.  I  mean,"  the  Princess  went  on, 
"the  real  old  days;  before  my  grand  husband  was  in 
vented  and,  much  more,  before  his  grand  wife  was : 
the  wonderful  times  of  his  first  great  interest  in  what 
he  has  since  done,  his  first  great  plans  and  opportuni 
ties,  discoveries  and  bargains.  The  way  we've  sat 
together  late,  ever  so  late,  in  foreign  restaurants,  which 
he  used  to  like ;  the  way  that,  in  every  city  in  Europe, 
we've  stayed  on  and  on,  with  our  elbows  on  the  table 
and  most  of  the  lights  put  out,  to  talk  over  things 
he  had  that  day  seen  or  heard  of  or  made  his  offer  for, 
the  things  he  had  secured  or  refused  or  lost!  There 
were  places  he  took  me  to — you  wouldn't  believe ! — for 
often  he  could  only  have  left  me  with  servants.  If  he 
should  carry  me  off  with  him  to-night,  for  old  sake's 
sake,  to  the  Earl's  Court  Exhibition,  it  will  be  a  little 
— just  a  very,  very  little — like  our  young  adventures." 
After  which  while  Amerigo  watched  her,  and  in  fact 
quite  because  of  it,  she  had  an  inspiration,  to  which  she 
presently  yielded.  If  he  was  wondering  what  she 
would  say  next  she  had  found  exactly  the  thing.  "In 

35i 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

that  case  he  will  leave  you  Charlotte  to  take  care  of  in 
our  absence.  You'll  have  to  carry  her  off  somewhere 
for  your  last  evening;  unless  you  may  prefer  to 
spend  it  with  her  here.  I  shall  then  see  that  you  dine, 
that  you  have  everything,  quite  beautifully.  You'll  be 
able  to  do  as  you  like." 

She  couldn't  have  been  sure  beforehand,  and  had 
really  not  been ;  but  the  most  immediate  result  of  this 
speech  was  his  letting  her  see  that  he  took  it  for  no 
cheap  extravagance  either  of  irony  or  of  oblivion. 
Nothing  in  the  world,  of  a  truth,  had  ever  been  so  sweet 
to  her  as  his  look  of  trying  to  be  serious  enough  to 
make  no  mistake  about  it.  She  troubled  him — which 
hadn't  been  at  all  her  purpose;  she  mystified  him — 
which  she  couldn't  help  and,  comparatively,  didn't 
mind ;  then  it  came  over  her  that  he  had,  after  all,  a 
simplicity,  very  considerable,  on  which  she  had  never 
dared  to  presume.  It  was  a  discovery — not  like  the 
other  discovery  she  had  once  made,  but  giving  out  a 
freshness;  and  she  recognised  again  in  the  light  of  it 
the  number  of  the  ideas  of  which  he  thought  her 
capable.  They  were  all,  apparently,  queer  for  him,  but 
she  had  at  least,  with  the  lapse  of  the  months,  created 
the  perception  that  there  might  be  something  in  them; 
whereby  he  stared  there,  beautiful  and  sombre,  at  what 
she  was  at  present  providing  him  with.  There  was 
something  of  his  own  in  his  mind,  to  which,  she  was 
sure,  he  referred  everything  for  a  measure  and  a  mean 
ing  ;  he  had  never  let  go  of  it,  from  the  evening,  weeks 
before,  when,  in  her  room,  after  his  encounter  with  the 
Bloomsbury  cup,  she  had  planted  it  there  by  flinging  it 

352 


THE   PRINCESS 

at  him,  on  the  question  of  her  father's  view  of  him,  her 
determined  "Find  out  for  yourself!"  She  had  been 
aware,  during  the  months,  that  he  had  been  trying  to 
find  out,  and  had  been  seeking,  above  all,  to  avoid  the 
appearance  of  any  evasions  of  such  a  form  of  knowl 
edge  as  might  reach  him,  with  violence  or  with  a  pene 
tration  more  insidious,  from  any  other  source.  Noth 
ing,  however,  had  reached  him ;  nothing  he  could  at  all 
conveniently  reckon  with  had  disengaged  itself  for  him 
even  from  the  announcement,  sufficiently  sudden,  of 
the  final  secession  of  their  companions.  Charlotte  was 
in  pain,  Charlotte  was  in  torment,  but  he  himself  had 
given  her  reason  enough  for  that;  and,  in  respect  to 
the  rest  of  the  whole  matter  of  her  obligation  to  follow 
her  husband,  that  personage  and  she,  Maggie,  had  so 
shuffled  away  every  link  between  consequence  and 
cause,  that  the  intention  remained,  like  some  famous 
poetic  line  in  a  dead  language,  subject  to  varieties  of 
interpretation.  What  renewed  the  obscurity  was  her 
strange  image  of  their  common  offer  to  him,  her 
father's  and  her  own,  of  an  opportunity  to  separate 
from  Mrs.  Verver  with  the  due  amount  of  form — and 
all  the  more  that  he  was,  in  so  pathetic  a  way,  unable 
to  treat  himself  to  a  quarrel  with  it  on  the  score  of 
taste.  Taste,  in  him,  as  a  touchstone,  was  now  all  at 
sea ;  for  who  could  say  but  that  one  of  her  fifty  ideas, 
or  perhaps  forty-nine  of  them,  wouldn't  be,  exactly, 
that  taste  by  itself,  the  taste  he  had  always  conformed 
to,  had  no  importance  whatever?  If  meanwhile,  at  all 
events,  he  felt  her  as  serious,  this  made  the  greater  rea 
son  for  her  profiting  by  it  as  she  perhaps  might  never 
VOL.  II.— 23  .  353 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

be  able  to  profit  again.  She  was  invoking  that  reflec 
tion  at  the  very  moment  he  brought  out,  in  reply  to  her 
last  words,  a  remark  which,  though  perfectly  relevant 
and  perfectly  just,  affected  her  at  first  as  a  high  oddity. 
"They're  doing  the  wisest  thing,  you  know.  For  if 

they  were  ever  to  go !"     And  he  looked  down  at 

her  over  his  cigar. 

If  they  were  ever  to  go,  in  short,  it  was  high  time, 
with  her  father's  age,  Charlotte's  need  of  initiation, 
and  the  general  magnitude  of  the  job  of  their  getting 
settled  and  seasoned,  their  learning  to  "live  into"  their 
queer  future — it  was  high  time  that  they  should  take 
up  their  courage.  This  was  eminent  sense,  but  it 
didn't  arrest  the  Princess,  who,  the  next  moment,  had 
found  a  form  for  her  challenge.  "But  shan't  you  then 
so  much  as  miss  her  a  little?  She's  wonderful  and 
beautiful,  and  I  feel  somehow  as  if  she  were  dying. 
Not  really,  not  physically,"  Maggie  went  on — "she's 
so  far,  naturally,  splendid  as  she  is,  from  having  done 
with  life.  But  dying  for  us — for  you  and  me;  and 
making  us  feel  it  by  the  very  fact  of  there  being  so 
much  of  her  left." 

The  Prince  smoked  hard  a  minute.  "As  you 
say,  she's  splendid,  but  there  is — there  always  will 
be — much  of  her  left.  Only,  as  you  also  say,  for 
others." 

"And  yet  I  think,"  the  Princess  returned,  "that  it 
isn't  as  if  we  had  wholly  done  with  her.  How  can  we 
not  always  think  of  her?  It's  as  if  her  unhappiness 
had  been  necessary  to  us — as  if  we  had  needed  her,  at 
her  own  cost,  to  build  us  up  and  start  us." 

354 


THE   PRINCESS 

He  took  it  in  with  consideration,  but  he  met  it  with 
a  lucid  inquiry.  "Why  do  you  speak  of  the  unhappi- 
ness  of  your  father's  wife?" 

They  exchanged  a  long  look — the  time  that  it  took 
her  to  find  her  reply.  "Because  not  to !" 

"Well,  not  to ?" 

"Would  make  me  have  to  speak  of  him.  And 
I  can't,"  said  Maggie,  "speak  of  him." 

"You  'can't' ?" 

"I  can't."  She  said  it  as  for  definite  notice,  not  to 
be  repeated.  "There  are  too  many  things,"  she  never 
theless  added.  "He's  too  great." 

The  Prince  looked  at  his  cigar-tip,  and  then  as  he  put 
back  the  weed:  "Too  great  for  whom?"  Upon 
which  as  she  hesitated,  "Not,  my  dear,  too  great  for 
you,"  he  declared.  "For  me — oh,  as  much  as  you 
like." 

"Too  great  for  me  is  what  I  mean.  I  know  why  I 
think  it,"  Maggie  said.  "That's  enough." 

He  looked  at  her  yet  again  as  if  she  but  fanned  his 
wonder;  he  was  on  the  very  point,  she  judged,  of  ask 
ing  her  why  she  thought  it.  But  her  own  eyes  majn- 
tained  their  warning,  and  at  the  end  of  a  minute  he 
had  uttered  other  words.  "What's  of  importance  is 
that  you're  his  daughter.  That  at  least  we've  got. 
And  I  suppose  that,  if  I  may  say  nothing  else,  I  may 
say  at  least  that  I  value  it." 

"Oh  yes,  you  may  say  that  you  value  it.  I  myself 
make  the  most  of  it." 

This  again  he  took  in,  letting  it  presently  put  forth 
for  him  a  striking  connection.  "She  ought  to  have 

355 


THE  GOLDEN  BOWL 

known  you.  That's  what's  present  to  me.  She  ought 
to  have  understood  you  better." 

"Better  than  you  did?" 

"Yes,"  he  gravely  maintained,  "better  than  I  did. 
And  she  didn't  really  know  you  at  all.  She  doesn't 
know  you  now." 

"Ah,  yes  she  does !"  said  Maggie. 

But  he  shook  his  head — he  knew  what  he  meant. 
"She  not  only  doesn't  understand  you  more  than  I,  she 
understands  you  ever  so  much  less.  Though  even 


"Well,  even  you  ?"  Maggie  pressed  as  he  paused. 

"Even  I,  even  I  even  yet !"  Again  he  paused 

and  the  silence  held  them. 

But  Maggie  at  last  broke  it.  "If  Charlotte  doesn't 
understand  me,  it  is  that  I've  prevented  her.  I've 
chosen  to  deceive  her  and  to  lie  to  her." 

The  Prince  kept  his  eyes  on  her.  "I  know  what 
you've  chosen  to  do.  But  I've  chosen  to  do  the 
same." 

"Yes,"  said  Maggie  after  an  instant — "my  choice 
was  made  when  I  had  guessed  yours.  But  you  mean," 
she  asked,  "that  she  understands  you?" 

"It  presents  small  difficulty!" 

"Are  you  so  sure?"  Maggie  went  on. 

"Sure  enough.  But  it  doesn't  matter."  He  waited 
an  instant;  then  looking  up  through  the  fumes  of  his 
smoke,  "She's  stupid,"  he  abruptly  opined. 

"O-oh !"  Maggie  protested  in  a  long  wail. 

It  had  made  him  in  fact  quickly  change  colour. 
"What  I  mean  is  that  she's  not,  as  you  pronounce  her, 

356 


THE   PRINCESS 

unhappy."  And  he  recovered,  with  this,  all  his  logic. 
"Why  is  she  unhappy  if  she  doesn't  know  ?" 

"Doesn't  know ?"  She  tried  to  make  his  logic 

difficult. 

"Doesn't  know  that  you  know." 

It  came  from  him  in  such  a  way  that  she  was  con 
scious,  instantly,  of  three  or  four  things  to  answer. 
But  what  she  said  first  was :  "Do  you  think  that's  all 
it  need  take?"  And  before  he  could  reply,  "She 
knows,  she  knows !"  Maggie  proclaimed. 

"Well  then,  what?" 

But  she  threw  back  her  head,  she  turned  impatiently 
away  from  him.  "Oh,  I  needn't  tell  you !  She  knows 
enough.  Besides,"  she  went  on,  "she  doesn't  believe 
us." 

It  made  the  Prince  stare  a  little.  "Ah,  she  asks.too 
much!"  That  drew,  however,  from  his  wife  another 
moan  of  objection,  which  determined  in  him  a  judg 
ment.  "She  won't  let  you  take  her  for  unhappy." 

"Oh,  I  know  better  than  any  one  else  what  she  won't 
let  me  take  her  for !" 

"Very  well,"  said  Amerigo,  "you'll  see." 

"I  shall  see  wonders,  I  know.  I've  already  seen 
them,  and  I'm  prepared  for  them."  Maggie  recalled 
— she  had  memories  enough.  "It's  terrible" — her 
memories  prompted  her  to  speak.  "I  see  it's  always 
terrible  for  women." 

The  Prince  looked  down  in  his  gravity.  "Every- 
•"hing's  terrible,  cara — in  the  heart  of  man.  She's 
making  her  life,"  he  said.  "She'll  make  it." 

His  wife  turned  back  upon  him ;  she  had  wandered 
357 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

to  a  table,  vaguely  setting  objects  straight.  "A  little 
by  the  way  then  too,  while  she's  about  it,  she's  making 
ours."  At  this  he  raised  his  eyes,  which  met  her  own, 
and  she  held  him  while  she  delivered  herself  of  some 
thing  that  had  been  with  her  these  last  minutes.  "You 
spoke  just  now  of  Charlotte's  not  having  learned  from 
you  that  I  'know.'  Am  I  to  take  from  you  then  that 
you  accept  and  recognise  my  knowledge?" 

He  did  the  inquiry  all  the  honours — visibly  weighed 
its  importance  and  weighed  his  response.  "You  think 
I  might  have  been  showing  you  that  a  little  more 
handsomely?" 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  any  beauty,"  said  Maggie; 
"it's  only  a  question  of  the  quantity  of  truth." 

"Oh,  the  quantity  of  truth!"  the  Prince  richly, 
though  ambiguously,  murmured. 

"That's  a  thing  by  itself,  yes.  But  there  are 
also  such  things,  all  the  same,  as  questions  of  good 
faith." 

"Of  course  there  are !"  the  Prince  hastened  to  reply. 
After  which  he  brought  up  more  slowly:  "If  ever  a 
man,  since  the  beginning  of  time,  acted  in  good 

faith !"  But  he  dropped  it,  offering  it  simply  for 

that. 

For  that  then,  when  it  had  had  time  somewhat  to 
settle,  like  some  handful  of  gold-dust  thrown  into  the 
air — for  that  then  Maggie  showed  herself,  as  deeply 
and  strangely  taking  it.  "I  see."  And  she  even 
wished  this  form  to  be  as  complete  as  she  could  make 
it.  "I  see." 

The  completeness,  clearly,  after  an  instant,  had 
358 


THE   PRINCESS 

struck  him  as  divine.  "Ah,  my  dear,  my  dear,  my 
dear !"  It  was  all  he  could  say. 

She  wasn't  talking,  however,  at  large.  "You've 
kept  up  for  so  long  a  silence !" 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know  what  I've  kept  up.  But  will  you 
do,"  he  asked,  "still  one  thing  more  for  me?" 

It  was  as  if,  for  an  instant,  with  her  new  exposure, 
it  had  made  her  turn  pale.  "Is  there  even  one  thing 
left?" 

"Ah,  my  dear,  my  dear,  my  dear!" — it  had  pressed 
again  in  him  the  fine  spring  of  the  unspeakable. 

There  was  nothing,  however,  that  the  Princess  her 
self  couldn't  say.  "I'll  do  anything,  if  you'll  tell  me 
what." 

"Then  wait."  And  his  raised  Italian  hand,  with  its 
play  of  admonitory  fingers,  had  never  made  gesture 
more  expressive.  His  voice  itself  dropped  to  a 
tone !  "Wait,"  he  repeated.  "Wait." 

She  understood,  but  it  was  as  if  she  wished  to  have 
it  from  him.  "Till  they've  been  here,  you  mean?" 

"Yes,  till  they've  gone.     Till  they're  away." 

She  kept  it  up.     "Till  they've  left  the  country?" 

She  had  her  eyes  on  him  for  clearness;  these  were 
the  conditions  of  a  promise — so  that  he  put  the  promise, 
practically,  into  his  response.  "Till  we've  ceased  to 
see  them — for  as  long  as  God  may  grant !  Till  we're 
really  alone." 

"Oh,  if  it's  only  that !"  When  she  had  drawn 

from  him  thus  then,  as  she  could  feel,  the  thick  breath 
of  the  definite — which  was  the  intimate,  the  immediate, 
the  familiar,  as  she  hadn't  had  them  for  so  long — she 

359 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

turned  away  again,  she  put  her  hand  on  the  knob  of 
the  door.  But  her  hand  rested  at  first  without  a  grasp ; 
she  had  another  effort  to  make,  the  effort  of  leaving 
him,  of  which  everything  that  had  just  passed  between 
them,  his  presence,  irresistible,  overcharged  with  it, 
doubled  the  difficulty.  There  was  something — she 
couldn't  have  told  what;  it  was  as  if,  shut  in  together, 
they  had  come  too  far — too  far  for  where  they  were; 
so  that  the  mere  act  of  her  quitting  him  was  like  the 
attempt  to  recover  the  lost  and  gone.  She  had  taken 
in  with  her  something  that,  within  the  ten  minutes,  and 
especially  within  the  last  three  or  four,  had  slipped 
away  from  her — which  it  was  vain  now,  wasn't  it?  to 
try  to  appear  to  clutch  or  to  pick  up.  That  conscious 
ness  in  fact  had  a  pang,  and  she  balanced,  intensely, 
for  the  lingering  moment,  almost  with  a  terror  of  her 
endless  power  of  surrender.  He  had  only  to  press, 
really,  for  her  to  yield  inch  by  inch,  and  she  fairly 
knew  at  present,  while  she  looked  at  him  through  her 
cloud,  that  the  confession  of  this  precious  secret  sat 
there  for  him  to  pluck.  The  sensation,  for  the  few 
seconds,  was  extraordinary;  her  weakness,  her  desire, 
so  long  as  she  was  yet  not  saving  herself,  flowered  in 
her  face  like  a  light  or  a  darkness.  She  sought  for 
some  word  that  would  cover  this  up;  she  reverted  to 
the  question  of  tea,  speaking  as  if  they  shouldn't  meet 
sooner.  "Then  about  five.  I  count  on  you." 

On  him  too,  however,  something  had  descended;  as 
to  which  this  exactly  gave  him  his  chance.  "Ah,  but 
I  shall  see  you !  No?"  he  said,  coming  nearer. 

She  had,  with  her  hand  still  on  the  knob,  her  back 
360 


THE   PRINCESS 

against  the  door,  so  that  her  retreat,  under  his  ap 
proach  must  be  less  than  a  step,  and  yet  she  couldn't 
for  her  life,  with  the  other  hand,  have  pushed  him 
away.  He  was  so  near  now  that  she  could  touch  him, 
taste  him,  smell  him,  kiss  him,  hold  him;  he  almost 
pressed  upon  her,  and  the  warmth  of  his  face — frown 
ing,  smiling,  she  mightn't  know  which;  only  beautiful 
and  strange — was  bent  upon  her  with  the  largeness 
with  which  objects  loom  in  dreams.  She  closed  her 
eyes  to  it,  and  so,  the  next  instant,  against  her  purpose, 
she  had  put  out  her  hand,  which  had  met  his  own  and 
which  he  held.  Then  it  was  that,  from  behind  her 
closed  eyes,  the  right  word  came.  "Wait!"  It  was 
the  word  of  his  own  distress  and  entreaty,  the  word 
for  both  of  them,  all  they  had  left,  their  plank  now  on 
the  great  sea.  Their  hands  were  locked,  and  thus  she 
said  it  again.  "Wait.  Wait."  She  kept  her  eyes 
shut,  but  her  hand,  she  knew,  helped  her  meaning — 
which  after  a  minute  she  was  aware  his  own  had  ab 
sorbed.  He  let  her  go — he  turned  away  with  this  mes 
sage,  and  when  she  saw  him  again  his  back  was  pre 
sented,  as  he  had  left  her,  and  his  face  staring  out  of 
the  window.  She  had  saved  herself  and  she  got  off. 


361 


XLII 

LATER  on,  in  the  afternoon,  before  the  others  ar 
rived,  the  form  of  their  reunion  was  at  least 
remarkable :  they  might,  in  their  great  eastward 
drawing-room,  have  been  comparing  notes  or  nerves 
in  apprehension  of  some  stiff  official  visit.  Maggie's 
mind,  in  its  restlessness,  even  played  a  little  with 
the  prospect;  the  high  cool  room,  with  its  afternoon 
shade,  with  its  old  tapestries  uncovered,  with  the 
perfect  polish  of  its  wide  floor  reflecting  the  bowls 
of  gathered  flowers  and  the  silver  and  linen  of  the 
prepared  tea-table,  drew  from  her  a  remark  in  which 
this  whole  effect  was  mirrored,  as  well  as  something 
else  in  the  Prince's  movement  while  he  slowly  paced 
and  turned.  "We're  distinctly  bourgeois!"  she  a  trifle 
grimly  threw  off,  as  an  echo  of  their  old  community; 
though  to  a  spectator  sufficiently  detached  they 
might  have  been  quite  the  privileged  pair  they  were 
reputed,  granted  only  they  were  taken  as  awaiting 
the  visit  of  Royalty.  They  might  have  been  ready, 
on  the  word  passed  up  in  advance,  to  repair  together 
to  the  foot  of  the  staircase — the  Prince  somewhat 
in  front,  advancing  indeed  to  the  open  doors  and 
even  going  down,  for  all  his  princedom,  to  meet,  on 
the  stopping  of  the  chariot,  the  august  emergence. 

362 


THE  PRINCESS 

The  time  was  stale,  it  was  to  be  admitted,  for  in 
cidents  of  magnitude;  the  September  hush  was  in 
full  possession,  at  the  end  of  the  dull  day,  and  a 
couple  of  the  long  windows  stood  open  to  the  bal 
cony  that  overhung  the  desolation — the  balcony  from 
which  Maggie,  in  the  springtime,  had  seen  Amerigo 
and  Charlotte  look  down  together  at  the  hour  of 
her  return  from  the  Regent's  Park,  near  by,  with  her 
father,  the  Principino  and  Miss  Bogle.  Amerigo  now 
again,  in  his  punctual  impatience,  went  out  a  couple 
of  times  and  stood  there;  after  which,  as  to  report 
that  nothing  was  in  sight,  he  returned  to  the  room 
with  frankly  nothing  else  to  do.  The  Princess  pre 
tended  to  read;  he  looked  at  her  as  he  passed;  there 
hovered  in  her  own  sense  the  thought  of  other  occa 
sions  when  she  had  cheated  appearances  of  agitation 
with  a  book.  At  last  she  felt  him  standing  before 
her,  and  then  she  raised  her  eyes. 

"Do  you  remember  how,  this  morning,  when  you 
told  me  of  this  event,  I  asked  you  if  there  were  any 
thing  particular  you  wished  me  to  do?  You  spoke 
of  my  being  at  home,  but  that  was  a  matter  of  course. 
You  spoke  of  something  else,"  he  went  on,  while  she 
sat  with  her  book  on  her  knee  and  her  raised  eyes; 
"something  that  makes  me  almost  wish  it  may  hap 
pen.  You  spoke,"  he  said,  "of  the  possibility  of  my 
seeing  her  alone.  Do  you  know,  if  that  comes,"  he 
asked,  "the  use  I  shall  make  of  it?"  And  then  as  she 
waited:  "The  use  is  all  before  me." 

"Ah,  it's  your  own  business  now!"  said  his  wife. 
But  it  had  made  her  rise. 

363 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

"I  shall  make  it  my  own,"  he  answered.  "I  shall 
tell  her  I  lied  to  her." 

"Ah  no !"  she  returned. 

"And  I  shall  tell  her  you  did." 

She  shook  her  head  again.     "Oh,  still  less!" 

With  which  therefore  they  stood  at  difference,  he 
with  his  head  erect  and  his  happy  idea  perched,  in 
its  eagerness,  on  his  crest.  "And  how  then  is  she 
to  know?" 

"She  isn't  to  know." 

"She's  only  still  to  think  you  don't ?" 

"And  therefore  that  I'm  always  a  fool?  She  may 
think,"  said  Maggie,  "what  she  likes." 

"Think  it  without  my  protest ?" 

The  Princess  made  a  movement.  "What  business 
is  it  of  yours?" 

"Isn't  it  my  right  to  correct  her ?" 

Maggie  let  his  question  ring — ring  long  enough 
for  him  to  hear  it  himself;  only  then  she  took  it  up. 
"  'Correct'  her?" — and  it  was  her  own  now  that  really 
rang.  "Aren't  you  rather  forgetting  who  she  is?" 
After  which,  while  he  quite  stared  for  it,  as  it  was 
the  very  first  clear  majesty  he  had  known  her  to  use, 
she  flung  down  her  book  and  raised  a  warning  hand. 
"The  carriage.  Come!" 

The  "Come!"  had  matched,  for  lucid  firmness,  the 
rest  of  her  speech,  and,  when  they  were  below,  in  the, 
hall,  there  was  a  "Go!"  for  him,  through  the  open 
doors  and  between  the  ranged  servants,  that  matched 
even  that.  He  received  Royalty,  bareheaded,  there 
fore,  in  the  persons  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Verver,  as  it 

364 


THE  PRINCESS 

alighted  on  the  pavement,  and  Maggie  was  at  the 
threshold  to  welcome  it  to  her  house.  Later  on, 
upstairs  again,  she  even  herself  felt  still  more  the 
force  of  the  limit  of  which  she  had  just  reminded  him; 
at  tea,  in  Charlotte's  affirmed  presence — as  Char 
lotte  affirmed  it — she  drew  a  long  breath  of  richer 
relief.  It  was  the  strangest,  once  more,  of  all  im 
pressions;  but  what  she  most  felt,  for  the  half-hour, 
was  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Verver  were  making  the  oc 
casion  easy.  They  were  somehow  conjoined  in  it, 
conjoined  for  a  present  effect  as  Maggie  had  abso 
lutely  never  yet  seen  them;  and  there  occurred,  before 
long,  a  moment  in  which  Amerigo's  look  met  her 
own  in  recognitions  that  he  couldn't  suppress.  The 
question  of  the  amount  of  correction  to  which  Char 
lotte  had  laid  herself  open  rose  and  hovered,  for  the 
instant,  only  to  sink,  conspicuously,  by  its  own 
weight;  so  high  a  pitch  she  seemed  to  give  to  the 
unconsciousness  of  questions,  so  resplendent  a  show 
of  serenity  she  succeeded  in  making.  The  shade  of 
the  official,  in  her  beauty  and  security,  never  for  a 
moment  dropped;  it  was  a  cool,  high  refuge,  like  the 
deep,  arched  recess  of  some  coloured  and  gilded 
image,  in  which  she  sat  and  smiled  and  waited,  drank 
her  tea,  referred  to  her  husband  and  remembered  her 
mission.  Her  mission  had  quite  taken  form — it  was 
but  another  name  for  the  interest  of  her  great  op 
portunity — that  of  representing  the  arts  and  the 
graces  to  a  people  languishing,  afar  off,  in  ignorance. 
Maggie  had  sufficiently  intimated  to  the  Prince,  ten 
minutes  before,  that  she  needed  no  showing  as  to 

365 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

what  their  friend  wouldn't  consent  to  be  taken  for; 
but  the  difficulty  now  indeed  was  to  choose,  for  ex 
plicit  tribute  of  admiration,  between  the  varieties  of 
her  nobler  aspects.  She  carried  it  off,  to  put  the 
matter  coarsely,  with  a  taste  and  a  discretion  that 
held  our  young  woman's  attention,  for  the  first  quar- 
ter-of-an-hour,  to  the  very  point  of  diverting  it  from 
the  attitude  of  her  overshadowed,  her  almost  super 
seded  companion.  But  Adam  Verver  profited  indeed 
at  this  time,  even  with  his  daughter,  by  his  so  marked 
peculiarity  of  seeming  on  no  occasion  to  have  an 
attitude;  and  so  long  as  they  were  in  the  room  to 
gether  she  felt  him  still  simply  weave  his  web  and 
play  out  his  long  fine  cord,  knew  herself  in  presence 
of  this  tacit  process  very  much  as  she  had  known  her 
self  at  Fawns.  He  had  a  way,  the  dear  man,  wherever 
he  was,  of  moving  about  the  room,  noiselessly,  to 
see  what  it  might  contain;  and  his  manner  of  now 
resorting  to  this  habit,  acquainted  as  he  already  was 
with  the  objects  in  view,  expressed  with  a  certain 
sharpness  the  intention  of  leaving  his  wife  to  her  de 
vices.  It  did  even  more  than  this;  it  signified,  to 
the  apprehension  of  the  Princess,  from  the  moment 
she  more  directly  took  thought  of  him,  almost  a 
special  view  of  these  devices,  as  actually  exhibited  in 
their  rarity,  together  with  an  independent,  a  settled 
appreciation  of  their  general  handsome  adequacy, 
which  scarcely  required  the  accompaniment  of  his 
faint  contemplative  hum. 

Charlotte  throned,  as  who  should  say,  between  her 
hostess  and  her  host,  the  whole  scene  having  crys- 

366 


THE   PRINCESS 

tallised,  as  soon  as  she  took  her  place,  to  the  right 
quiet  lustre;  the  harmony  was  not  less  sustained  for 
being  superficial,  and  the  only  approach  to  a  break 
in  it  was  while  Amerigo  remained  standing  long 
enough  for  his  father-in-law,  vaguely  wondering,  to 
appeal  to  him,  invite  or  address  him,  and  then,  in 
default  of  any  such  word,  selected  for  presentation 
to  the  other  visitor  a  plate  of  petits  fours.  Maggie 
watched  her  husband — if  it  now  could  be  called 
watching — offer  this  refreshment;  she  noted  the  con 
summate  way — for  "consummate"  was  the  term  she 
privately  applied — in  which  Charlotte  cleared  her 
acceptance,  cleared  her  impersonal  smile,  of  any  be 
trayal,  any  slightest  value,  of  consciousness;  and  then 
felt  the  slow  surge  of  a  vision  that,  at  the  end  of 
another  minute  or  two,  had  floated  her  across  the 
room  to  where  her  father  stood  looking  at  a  picture, 
an  early  Florentine  sacred  subject,  that  he  had  given 
her  on  her  marriage.  He  might  have  been,  in  silence, 
taking  his  last  leave  of  it;  it  was  a  work  for  which 
he  entertained,  she  knew,  an  unqualified  esteem. 
The  tenderness  represented  for  her  by  his  sacrifice 
of  such  a  treasure  had  become,  to  her  sense,  a  part 
of  the  whole  infusion,  of  the  immortal  expression; 
the  beauty  of  his  sentiment  looked  out  at  her,  always, 
from  the  beauty  of  the  rest,  as  if  the  frame  made 
positively  a  window  for  his  spiritual  face:  she  might 
have  said  to  herself,  at  this  moment,  that  in  leaving 
the  thing  behind  him,  held  as  in  her  clasping  arms, 
he  was  doing  the  most  possible  toward  leaving  her 
a  part  of  his  palpable  self.  She  put  her  hand  over 

367 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

his  shoulder,  and  their  eyes  were  held  again,  together, 
by  the  abiding  felicity;  they  smiled  in  emulation, 
vaguely,  as  if  speech  failed  them  through  their  having 
passed  too  far;  she  would  have  begun  to  wonder  the 
next  minute  if  it  were  reserved  to  them,  for  the  last 
stage,  to  find  their  contact,  like  that  of  old  friends 
reunited  too  much  on  the  theory  of  the  unchanged, 
subject  to  shy  lapses. 

"It's  all  right,  eh?" 

"Oh,  my  dear— rather!" 

He  had  applied  the  question  to  the  great  fact  of  the 
picture,  as  she  had  spoken  for  the  picture  in  reply, 
but  it  was  as  if  their  words  for  an  instant  afterwards 
symbolised  another  truth,  so  that  they  looked  about 
at  everything  else  to  give  them  this  extension.  She 
had  passed  her  arm  into  his,  and  the  other  objects 
in  the  room,  the  other  pictures,  the  sofas,  the  chairs, 
the  tables,  the  cabinets,  the  "important"  pieces,  su 
preme  in  their  way,  stood  out,  round  them,  con 
sciously,  for  recognition  and  applause.  Their  eyes 
moved  together  from  piece  to  piece,  taking  in  the 
whole  nobleness — quite  as  if  for  him  to  measure  the 
wisdom  of  old  ideas.  The  two  noble  persons  seated, 
in  conversation,  at  tea,  fell  thus  into  the  splendid 
effect  and  the  general  harmony:  Mrs.  Verver  and  the 
Prince  fairly  "placed"  themselves,  however  unwit 
tingly,  as  higfi  expressions  of  the  kind  of  human  fur 
niture  required,  esthetically,  by  such  a  scene.  The 
fusion  of  their  presence  with  the  decorative  elements, 
their  contribution  to  the  triumph  of  selection,  was 
complete  and  admirable;  though,  to  a  lingering  view, 

368  ' 


THE  PRINCESS 

a  view  more  penetrating  than  the  occasion  really 
demanded,  they  also  might  have  figured  as  concrete 
attestations  of  a  rare  power  of  purchase.  There  was 
much  indeed  in  the  tone  in  which  Adam  Verver  spoke 
again,  and  who  shall  say  where  his  thought  stopped? 
"Le  compte  y  est.  You've  got  some  good  things." 

Maggie  met  it  afresh — "Ah,  don't  they  look  well?" 
Their  companions,  at  the  sound  of  this,  gave  them, 
in  a  spacious  intermission  of  slow  talk,  an  attention, 
all  of  gravity,  that  was  like  an  ampler  submission 
to  the  general  duty  of  magnificence;  sitting  as  still, 
to  be  thus  appraised,  as  a  pair  of  effigies  of  the  con 
temporary  great  on  one  of  the  platforms  of  Madame 
Tussaud.  "I'm  so  glad — for  your  last  look." 

With  which,  after  Maggie — quite  in  the  air — had 
said  it,  the  note  was  struck  indeed;  the  note  of  that 
strange  accepted  finality  of  relation,  as  from  couple 
to  couple,  which  almost  escaped  an  awkwardness  only 
by  not  attempting  a  gloss.  Yes,  this  was  the  wonder, 
that  the  occasion  defied  insistence  precisely  because 
of  the  vast  quantities  with  which  it  dealt — so  that 
separation  was  on  a  scale  beyond  any  compass  of 
parting.  To  do  such  an  hour  justice  would  have 
been  in  some  degree  to  question  its  grounds — 
which  was  why  they  remained,  in  fine,  the  four  of 
them,  in  the  upper  air,  united  in  the  firmest  absten 
tion  from  pressure.  There  was  no  point,  visibly,  at 
which,  face  to  face,  either  Amerigo  or  Charlotte  had 
pressed;  and  how  little  she  herself  was  in  danger  of 
doing  so  Maggie  scarce  needed  to  remember.  That 
her  father  wouldn't,  by  the  tip  of  a  toe — of  that  she 
VOL.  II.— 24  369 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

was  equally  conscious:  the  only  thing  was  that,  since 
he  didn't,  she  could  but  hold  her  breath  for  what  he 
would  do  instead.  When,  at  the  end  of  three  minutes 
more,  he  had  said,  with  an  effect  of  suddenness,  "Well, 
Mag — and  the  Principino?"  it  was  quite  as  if  that 
were,  by  contrast,  the  hard,  the  truer  voice. 

She  glanced  at  the  clock.  "I  'ordered'  him  for 
half-past  five — which  hasn't  yet  struck.  Trust  him, 
my  dear,  not  to  fail  you!" 

"Oh,  I  don't  want  him  to  fail  me!"  was  Mr.  Ver- 
ver's  reply;  yet  uttered  in  so  explicitly  jocose  a 
relation  to  the  possibilities  of  failure  that  even  when, 
just  afterwards,  he  wandered  in  his  impatience  to  one 
of  the  long  windows  and  passed  out  to  the  balcony, 
she  asked  herself  but  for  a  few  seconds  if  reality, 
should  she  follow  him,  would  overtake  or  meet  her 
there.  She  followed  him  of  necessity — it  came,  ab 
solutely,  so  near  to  his  inviting  her,  by  stepping  off 
into  temporary  detachment,  to  give  the  others  some 
thing  of  the  chance  that  she  and  her  husband  had  so 
fantastically  discussed.  Beside  him  then,  while  they 
hung  over  the  great  dull  place,  clear  and  almost  col 
oured  now,  coloured  with  the  odd,  sad,  pictured, 
"old-fashioned"  look  that  empty  London  streets  take 
on  in  waning  afternoons  of  the  summer's  end,  she 
felt  once  more  how  impossible  such  a  passage  would 
have  been  to  them,  how  it  would  have  torn  them  to 
pieces,  if  they  had  so  much  as  suffered  its  suppressed 
relations  to  peep  out  of  their  eyes.  This  danger 
would  doubtless  indeed  have  been  more  to  be  reck 
oned  with  if  the  instinct  of  each — she  could  certainly 

370 


THE  PRINCESS 

at  least  answer  for  her  own — had  not  so  successfully 
acted  to  trump  up  other  apparent  connexions  for  it, 
connexions  as  to  which  they  could  pretend  to  be 
frank. 

"You  mustn't  stay  on  here,  you  know,"  Adam 
Verver  said  as  a  result  of  his  unobstructed  outlook. 
"Fawns  is  all  there  for  you,  of  course — to  the  end 
of  my  tenure.  But  Fawns  so  dismantled,"  he  added 
with  mild  ruefulness,  "Fawns  with  half  its  contents, 
and  half  its  best  things,  removed,  won't  seem  to  you, 
I'm  afraid,  particularly  lively." 

"No,"  Maggie  answered,  "we  should  miss  its  best 
things.  Its  best  things,  my  dear,  have  certainly  been 
removed.  To  be  back  there,"  she  went  on,  "to  be 

back  there !"  And  she  paused  for  the  force  of 

her  idea. 

"Oh,  to  be  back  there  without  anything  good !" 

But  she  didn't  hesitate  now;  she  brought  her  idea 
forth.  "To  be  back  there  without  Charlotte  is  more 
than  I  think  would  do."  And  as  she  smiled  at  him 
with  it,  so  she  saw  him  the  next  instant  take  it — take 
it  in  a  way  that  helped  her  smile  to  pass  all  for  an 
allusion  to  what  she  didn't  and  couldn't  say.  This 
quantity  was  too  clear — that  she  couldn't  at  such  an 
hour  be  pretending  to  name  to  him  what  it  was,  as 
he  would  have  said,  "going  to  be,"  at  Fawns  or  any 
where  else,  to  want  for  him.  That  was  now — and  in  a 
manner  exaltedly,  sublimely — out  of  their  compass 
and  their  question;  so  that  what  was  she  doing,  while 
they  waited  for  the  Principino,  while  they  left  the 
others  together  and  their  tension  just  sensibly  threat- 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

ened,  what  was  she  doing  but  just  offer  a  bold  but 
substantial  substitute?  Nothing  was  stranger 
moreover,  under  the  action  of  Charlotte's  presence, 
than  the  fact  of  a  felt  sincerity  in  her  words.  She 
felt  her  sincerity  absolutely  sound — she  gave  it  for 
all  it  might  mean.  "Because  Charlotte,  dear,  you 
know,"  she  said,  "is  incomparable."  It  took  thirty 
seconds,  but  she  was  to  know  when  these  were 
over  that  she  had  pronounced  one  of  the  happiest 
words  of  her  life.  They  had  turned  from  the  view 
of  the  street;  they  leaned  together  against  the  bal 
cony  rail,  with  the  room  largely  in  sight  from  where 
they  stood,  but  with  the  Prince  and  Mrs.  Verver  out 
of  range.  Nothing  he  could  try,  she  immediately 
saw,  was  to  keep  his  eyes  from  lighting;  not  even 
his  taking  out  his  cigarette-case  and  saying  before 
he  said  anything  else:  "May  I  smoke?"  She  met 
it,  for  encouragement,  with  her  "My  dear!"  again, 
and  then,  while  he  struck  his  match,  she  had  just 
another  minute  to  be  nervous — a  minute  that  she 
made  use  of,  however,  not  in  the  least  to  falter,  but 
to  reiterate  with  a  high  ring,  a  ring  that  might,  for 
all  she  cared,  reach  the  pair  inside:  "Father,  father — 
Charlotte's  great!" 

It  was  not  till  after  he  had  begun  to  smoke  that 
he  looked  at  her.  "Charlotte's  great." 

They  could  close  upon  it — such  a  basis  as  they 
might  immediately  feel  it  make;  and  so  they  stood 
together  over  it,  quite  gratefully,  each  recording  to 
the  other's  eyes  that  it  was  firm  under  their  feet. 
They  had  even  thus  a  renewed  wait,  as  for  proof  of  it ; 

372 


THE   PRINCESS 

much  as  if  he  were  letting  her  see,  while  the  minutes 
lapsed  for  their  concealed  companions,  that  this  was 
finally  just  why — but  just  why!  "You  see,"  he  pres 
ently  added,  "how  right  I  was.  Right,  I  mean,  to 
do  it  for  you." 

"Ah,  rather!"  she  murmured  with  her  smile.  And 
then,  as  to  be  herself  ideally  right:  "I  don't  see  what 
you  would  have  done  without  her." 

"The  point  was,"  he  returned  quietly,  "that  I  didn't 
see  what  you  were  to  do.  Yet  it  was  a  risk." 

"It  was  a  risk,"  said  Maggie — "but  I  believed  in 
it.  At  least  for  myself!"  she  smiled. 

"Well  now,"  he  smoked,  "we  see." 

"We  see." 

"I  know  her  better." 

"You  know  her  best." 

"Oh,  but  naturally!"  On  which,  as  the  warranted 
truth  of  it  hung  in  the  air — the  truth  warranted,  as 
who  should  say,  exactly  by  the  present  opportunity 
to  pronounce,  this  opportunity  created  and  accepted 
— she  found  herself  lost,  though  with  a  finer  thrill 
than  she  had  perhaps  yet  known,  in  the  vision  of  all 
he  might  mean.  The  sense  of  it  in  her  rose  higher, 
rose  with  each  moment  that  he  invited  her  thus  to 
see  him  linger;  and  when,  after  a  little  more,  he  had 
said,  smoking  again  and  looking  up,  with  head 
thrown  back  and  hands  spread  on  the  balcony  rail, 
at  the  grey,  gaunt  front  of  the  house,  "She's  beau 
tiful,  beautiful!"  her  sensibility  reported  to  her  the 
shade  of  a  new  note.  It  was  all  she  might  have 
wished,  for  it  was,  with  a  kind  of  speaking  com- 

373 


THE  GOLDEN   BOWL 

petence,  the  note  of  possession  and  control;  and  yet 
it  conveyed  to  her  as  nothing  till  now  had  done  the 
reality  of  their  parting.  They  were  parting,  in  the 
light  of  it,  absolutely  on  Charlotte's  value — the  value 
that  was  filling  the  room  out  of  which  they  had 
stepped  as  if  to  give  it  play,  and  with  which  the 
Prince,  on  his  side,  was  perhaps  making  larger 
acquaintance.  If  Maggie  had  desired,  at  so  late 
an  hour,  some  last  conclusive  comfortable  category 
to  place  him  in  for  dismissal,  she  might  have 
found  it  here  in  its  all  coming  back  to  his  ability 
to  rest  upon  high  values.  Somehow,  when  all 
was  said,  and  with  the  memory  of  her  gifts,  her  va 
riety,  her  power,  so  much  remained  of  Charlotte's! 
What  else  had  she  herself  meant  three  minutes  be 
fore  by  speaking  of  her  as  great?  Great  for  the  world 
that  was  before  her — that  he  proposed  she  should  be : 
she  was  not  to  be  wasted  in  the  application  of  his  plan. 
Maggie  held  to  this  then — that  she  wasn't  to  be 
wasted.  To  let  his  daughter  know  it  he  had  sought 
this  brief  privacy.  What  a  blessing,  accordingly,  that 
she  could  speak  her  joy  in  it!  His  face,  meanwhile, 
at  all  events,  was  turned  to  her,  and  as  she  met  his 
eyes  again  her  joy  went  straight.  ''It's  success, 
father." 

"It's  success.  And  even  this"  he  added  as  the 
Principino,  appearing  alone,  deep  within,  piped  across 
an  instant  greeting — "even  this  isn't  altogether 
failure!" 

They  went  in  to  receive  the  boy,  upon  whose  in 
troduction  to  the  room  by  Miss  Bogle  Charlotte  and 

374 


THE   PRINCESS 

the  Prince  got  up — seemingly  with  an  impressiveness 
that  had  caused  Miss  Bogle  not  to  give  further  effect 
to  her  own  entrance.  She  had  retired,  but  the  Prin- 
cipino's  presence,  by  itself,  sufficiently  broke  the  ten 
sion — the  subsidence  of  which,  in  the  great  room, 
ten  minutes  later,  gave  to  the  air  something  of  the 
quality  produced  by  the  cessation  of  a  sustained 
rattle.  Stillness,  when  the  Prince  and  Princess  re 
turned  from  attending  the  visitors  to  their  carriage, 
might  have  been  said  to  be  not  so  much  restored  as 
created;  so  that  whatever  next  took  place  in  it  was 
foredoomed  to  remarkable  salience.  That  would 
have  been  the  case  even  with  so  natural,  though  so 
futile,  a  movement  as  Maggie's  going  out  to  the  bal 
cony  again  to  follow  with  her  eyes  her  father's 
departure.  The  carriage  was  out  of  sight — it  had 
taken  her  too  long  solemnly  to  reascend,  and  she 
looked  awhile  only  at  the  great  grey  space,  on  which, 
as  on  the  room  still  more,  the  shadow  of  dusk  had 
fallen.  Here,  at  first,  her  husband  had  not  rejoined 
her;  he  had  come  up  with  the  boy,  who,  clutching 
his  hand,  abounded,  as  usual,  in  remarks  worthy  of 
the  family  archives;  but  the  two  appeared  then  to 
have  proceeded  to  report  to  Miss  Bogle.  It  meant 
something  for  the  Princess  that  her  husband  had  thus 
got  their  son  out  of  the  way,  not  bringing  him  back 
to  his  mother;  but  everything  now,  as  she  vaguely 
moved  about,  struck  her  as  meaning  so  much  that 
the  unheard  chorus  swelled.  Yet  this  above  all — 
her  just  being  there  as  she  was  and  waiting  for  him 
to  come  in,  their  freedom  to  be  together  there  always 

375 


THE   GOLDEN   BOWL 

— was  the  meaning  most  disengaged:  she  stood  in 
the  cool  twilight  and  took  in,  all  about  her,  where 
it  lurked,  her  reason  for  what  she  had  done.  She 
knew  at  last  really  why — and  how  she  had  been  in 
spired  and  guided,  how  she  had  been  persistently  able, 
how,  to  her  soul,  all  the  while,  it  had  been  for  the 
sake  of  this  end.  Here  it  was,  then,  the  moment, 
the  golden  fruit  that  had  shone  from  afar;  only,  what 
were  these  things,  in  the  fact,  for  the  hand  and  for 
the  lips,  when  tested,  when  tasted — what  were  they 
as  a  reward?  Closer  than  she  had  ever  been  to  the 
measure  of  her  course  and  the  full  face  of  her  act,  she 
had  an  instant  of  the  terror  that,  when  there  has  been 
suspense,  always  precedes,  on  the  part  of  the  creature 
to  be  paid,  the  certification  of  the  amount.  Amerigo 
knew  it,  the  amount;  he  still  held  it,  and  the  delay 
in  his  return,  making  her  heart  beat  too  fast  to  go 
on,  was  like  a  sudden  blinding  light  on  a  wild  spec 
ulation.  She  had  thrown  the  dice,  but  his  hand  was 
over  her  cast. 

He  opened  the  door,  however,  at  last — he  hadn't 
been  away  ten  minutes;  and  then,  with  her  sight  of 
him  renewed  to  intensity,  she  seemed  to  have  a  view 
of  the  number.  His  presence  alone,  as  he  paused 
to  look  at  her,  somehow  made  it  the  highest,  and 
even  before  he  had  spoken  she  had  begun  to  be  paid 
in  full.  With  that  consciousness,  in  fact,  an  extraor 
dinary  thing  occurred;  the  assurance  of  her  safety 
so  making  her  terror  drop  that  already,  within  the 
minute,  it  had  been  changed  to  concern  for  his  own 
anxiety,  for  everything  that  was  deep  in  his  being 

376 


THE   PRINCESS 

and  everything  that  was  fair  in  his  face.  So  far  as 
seeing  that  she  was  "paid"  went,  he  might  have  been 
holding  out  the  money-bag  for  her  to  come  and  take 
it.  But  what  instantly  rose,  for  her,  between  the  act 
and  her  acceptance  was  the  sense  that  she  must  strike 
him  as  waiting  for  a  confession.  This,  in  turn, 
charged  her  with  a  new  horror:  if  that  was  her  proper 
payment  she  would  go  without  money.  His  ac 
knowledgment  hung  there,  too  monstrously,  at  the 
expense  of  Charlotte,  before  whose  mastery  of  the 
greater  style  she  had  just  been  standing  dazzled.  All 
she  now  knew,  accordingly,  was  that  she  should  be 
ashamed  to  listen  to  the  uttered  word;  all,  that  is, 
but  that  she  might  dispose  of  it  on  the  spot  forever. 

"Isn't  she  too  splendid?"  she  simply  said,  offering 
it  to  explain  and  to  finish. 

"Oh,  splendid!"    With  which  he  came  over  to  her. 

"That's  our  help,  you  see,"  she  added — to  point 
further  her  moral. 

It  kept  him  before  her  therefore,  taking  in — or 
trying  to — what  she  so  wonderfully  gave.  He  tried, 
too  clearly,  to  please  her — to  meet  her  in  her  own 
way;  but  with  the  result  only  that,  close  to  her,  her 
face  kept  before  him,  his  hands  holding  her  shoulders, 
his  whole  act  enclosing  her,  he  presently  echoed: 
"  'See'?  I  see  nothing  but  you."  And  the  truth  of  it 
had,  with  this  force,  after  a  moment,  so  strangely 
lighted  his  eyes  that,  as  for  pity  and  dread  of  them, 
she  buried  her  own  in  his  breast. 

THE  END. 

377 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    001  384  989    8 


